Canada\u2019s main stock index jumped on Friday in a broad-based rally led \u200dby \u200bmining shares as precious metals rebounded on safe-haven demand, setting up the index to finish a volatile week with healthy gains.<\/p>\n
The S&P\/TSX Composite Index was up 383.73 points, or 1.2 per cent, at 32,378.33 as of 11:03 a.m. ET, taking its \u2060weekly advance to 1.6 per cent so far.<\/p>\n
The gold sector rose 5.1% \u2014 tracking gold prices \u2014 on track for weekly gains after the steepest drop since March 2020 last week.<\/p>\n
Silver gained 7.7%, while copper prices eased after early losses. The \u200cbroader materials index \u200dadvanced 4.2%.<\/p>\n
The TSX kicked off the week with a rebound \u200din precious-metal miners\u2019 shares, before renewed weakness in \u200cmetal markets pulled the sector lower again.<\/p>\n
\u201cExpect a lot \u2060of headwinds to continue with the macro news out there. Traders are \u200bgoing to focus on earnings like they always do, but they also have to consider potential risks in news coming out,\u201d said Michael Constantino, chief executive officer of Webull Securities.<\/p>\n
\u201cMarkets cannot always go up continuously. There always \u200bis going to be some kind of pullback.\u201d<\/p>\n
The TSX\u2019s tech index rose 1.4%, though it looks set to log losses for a fourth straight week. Canadian tech stocks were caught up in a selloff in global software and data-services names earlier in the week on fears that \u2060artificial intelligence could disrupt traditional business models.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, trading in energy companies remained \u2060choppy on Friday, last up 1.3%, with oil prices swinging between gains and losses \u200cthroughout the day.<\/p>\n
The consumer staples index was headed for its biggest weekly gain ever, up 8.4%.<\/p>\n
On the macroeconomic front, Canada unexpectedly lost 24,800 jobs in January but the unemployment rate dipped to a 16-month low of 6.5% as fewer \u200cpeople looked for work, Statistics Canada said on Friday.<\/p>\n
Wall Street is bouncing back from big losses taken earlier in the week, as technology stocks recover some of their losses on Friday and bitcoin halts its plunge, at least for now.<\/p>\n
The S&P 500 rose 0.9% and was heading for just its second gain in the last eight days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 776 points, or 1.6%, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% higher.<\/p>\n
Chip companies helped drive the gains, and Nvidia rallied 4.9% to trim its loss for the week, which came into the day at just over 10%. Broadcom climbed 3.8% to eat into its drop for the week of 6.3%.<\/p>\n
They were the two strongest forces lifting the S&P 500, and they benefited from hopes for big spending on chips by companies to drive their forays into artificial-intelligence technology. Amazon, for example, said late Thursday it expects to spend about $200 billion on investments this year to take advantage of \u201cseminal opportunities like AI, chips, robotics, and low earth orbit satellites.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such heavy spending, similar to what Alphabet announced a day earlier, is creating concerns of their own, though. The question is whether all those dollars will prove to be worth it through bigger profits in the future. With doubt remaining about that, Amazon\u2019s stock dropped 8.5%.<\/p>\n
Even with Friday\u2019s rebound, the S&P 500 is still heading toward its third losing week in the last four. Besides worries about the big spending on AI by Big Tech companies, whose stocks are the most influential on Wall Street, concerns about AI potentially stealing customers away from software companies also hurt the market through the week.<\/p>\n
Bitcoin, meanwhile, steadied itself somewhat following a weekslong plunge that had sent it more than halfway below its record set in October. It climbed back to $68,000 after briefly dropping around $60,000 late Thursday.<\/p>\n
Prices in the metals market also calmed a bit following their own wild swings. Gold rose 2% to $4,986.20 per ounce, while silver slipped 0.3%.<\/p>\n
Their prices suddenly ran out of momentum last week following jaw-dropping rallies, which were driven by investors clamoring for something safe to own amid worries about political turmoil, a U.S. stock market that critics called expensive and huge debt loads for governments worldwide. By January, though, prices were surging so quickly that critics called it unsustainable.<\/p>\n
On Wall Street, the recovery for bitcoin helped stocks of companies enmeshed in the crypto economy. Robinhood Markets jumped 11.7% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500. Crypto trading platform Coinbase Global rose 7.3%. Strategy, the company that\u2019s made a business of buying and holding bitcoin, soared 15.9%.<\/p>\n
Stocks of smaller U.S. companies also helped lead the market, along with companies whose profits depend on U.S. households spending more money. They benefited from potentially encouraging data on how U.S. consumers are feeling.<\/p>\n
A preliminary report from the University of Michigan suggested sentiment among U.S. consumers is improving slightly, when economists were expecting to see a drop. The improvement was strongest among households who own stocks, which are benefiting from the S&P 500 setting a record late last month.<\/p>\n
To be sure, sentiment \u201cremained at dismal levels for consumers without stock holdings,\u201d according to Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu.<\/p>\n
Airline stocks were strong with hopes that more confident customers will translate into more spending on trips. That included gains of 5.4% for United Airlines, 4.6% for American Airlines and 4.4% for Delta Air Lines.<\/p>\n
The smaller stocks in the Russell 2000 index, meanwhile, jumped 2.3% to more than double the gain of the S&P 500. Smaller stocks can be more dependent on the strength of the U.S. economy for their profits than their big, multinational rivals.<\/p>\n
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe.<\/p>\n
That was even though Stellantis, the auto giant whose stock trades in Milan, lost nearly 26% after saying it would take a charge of 22 billion euros, or $26 billion, as it dials back its electric vehicle production. The automaker acknowledged \u201cover-estimating the pace of the energy transition\u201d and said it was resetting its business \u201cto align the company with the real-world preferences of its customers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stocks fell across much of Asia, but Japan\u2019s Nikkei 225 rose 0.8%. It benefited from a 2% climb for Toyota Motor, which said CEO Koji Sato will step down in April and will be replaced by the company\u2019s chief financial officer, Kenta Kon.<\/p>\n
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady. The yield on the 10-year Treasury erased an earlier modest loss and was holding at 4.21%, where it was late Thursday.<\/p>\n
Reuters and The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s main stock index jumped on Friday in a broad-based rally led \u200dby \u200bmining shares as precious metals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,4498,49,48,3237,3240,16664,1412,3241,14503,176,61,3238,6495],"class_list":["post-457966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-banks","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dow-jones","tag-equities","tag-marketupdate","tag-newsletter","tag-oil","tag-sp","tag-stocks","tag-technology","tag-tsx","tag-wall-street"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}