Canada's main stock index dipped on Thursday, as market participants remained cautious amid uncertainty in the Middle East conflict and assessed a fresh batch of quarterly bank earnings.
The TSX dropped 186.66 points to begin Thursday’s session at 36,626,99
The Canadian dollar poked up 0.06 cents to 72.13 cents U.S.
Investors assessed quarterly bank earnings from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Royal Bank of Canada, alongside the ongoing geopolitical uncertainty.
CIBC shares slid $6.75, or 4.1%, to $157.07, while those for RBC cratered $7.06, or 2.5%, to $281.05.
Information technology shares were lifted by a jump of 66 cents, or 6.1%, in BlackBerry to $11.46.
On the geopolitical front, Qatar's prime minister will visit Tehran on Thursday to pursue mediation efforts after the U.S. and Iran traded recriminations over Washington's promise to increase economic pressure on Iran by targeting its trade partners for sanctions.
On the economic front, Statistics Canada reported the number of employees receiving pay and benefits from their employer—measured as "payroll employment" in the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours—was little changed (+4,800; +0.0%) in June, following an increase of 45,000 (+0.2%) in May. On a year-on-year basis, payroll employment was up by 155,000 (+0.8%) in June.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange dipped 0.32 points to 1,002.45.
Seven of the 12 TSX subgroups were lower, weighed most by gold, sliding 2.3%, materials, worse off by 1.9%, and consumer discretionary stocks, dipping 1.6%.
The five gainers were led by industrials, which added 0.9%, energy, pumping ahead 0.8%, and utilities, moving ahead 0.7%.
ON WALLSTREET
The NASDAQ Composite was higher on Thursday as the latest earnings reports from Nvidia and other well-known technology companies boosted sentiment.
The Dow Jones Industrials fell short of breakeven by 2.54 points to 53,461.34.
The S&P 500 recovered 35.76 points to 7,711.46.
The NASDAQ Composite gained 297.39 points, or 1.1%, to 26,427,59.
Nvidia shares jumped 7% after it beat analyst expectations and forecast strong revenue growth. Notably, the chipmaker is projected to see revenue growth hit 70% in fiscal 2028, far higher than the 44% that analysts surveyed expected. Its revenue for the fiscal second quarter more than doubled.
More broadly, shares linked to the semiconductor industry rallied, with Broadcom adding 2%, and SK Hynix and Arm up 1% and 5%, respectively. Intel shares also rose more than 1%,
Additionally, Salesforce rallied 13% after revenue came in ahead of Wall Street’s forecast for the second quarter. Software stocks such as Adobe and Autodesk also climbed around 5% each.
Within cybersecurity specifically, Okta soared more than 20% and CrowdStrike gained 17% after surpassing analyst expectations and raising their outlooks as the companies see booming demand due to agentic AI. Other cyber stocks such as Palo Alto Networks rose alongside them.
That stock in particular popped 11%.
Prices for the 10-year Treasury were lower, raising yields to 4.66% from Wednesday’s 4.63%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices took on 68 cents to $82.91 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices stumbled $18.40 to $4,634.90 U.S. an ounce.
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