Stocks closed higher on Monday ahead of a packed week of earnings from megacap companies and the final stretch before the Nov. 5 presidential election, while overall investor sentiment improved after energy supplies were not disrupted by weekend developments in the Middle East.
Israel’s response over the weekend to an Iranian missile attack this month focused, so far, on missile factories and other sites near Tehran, rather than on refineries or nuclear targets. The Brent crude price fell by over 5% on Monday.
Wall Street was mostly focused, however, on the week ahead, notably corporate results, with around 169 S&P 500 companies scheduled to report through the week.
That includes the bulk of the “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap technology stocks that have driven Wall Street to all-time highs. Alphabet, Meta Platforms and Apple rose ahead of results this week.
Last week, Nvidia surpassed Apple as the world’s most valuable company. Investors will look out for AI spending guidance in tech earnings this week.
“The earnings will be important for the guidance that the companies give as to what sort of capital expenditure programs they may implement in the coming year,” said Paul Christopher, head of Global Investment Strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
Microsoft and Amazon.com also report earnings this week.
The small-cap Russell 2000 jumped 1.63% today, outperforming major indexes.
“This could be the market looking ahead to a soft landing and expecting small caps to be first out of the gate as they typically are,” Christopher said. “It could also be some element related to the Trump trade but it’s very difficult to disentangle those two.”
The S&P/TSX composite index ended the day up 88.96 points, or 0.36%, at 24,552.63, almost recouping losses of the last two trading sessions. The advance was primarily led by health care, financials and consumer goods, each of which were either above or just around 1% higher.
The rise came even as energy stocks lost close to 0.9% of its value due to the drop in crude oil prices.
Domestic traders will watch results from companies such as Canadian Natural Resources and Enbridge as well as Thursday’s August GDP report - the first major dataset since the Bank of Canada’s half-point rate cut last week.
This week’s U.S. Personal Consumption Expenditures index, along with the country’s third-quarter GDP data and non farm payrolls report could shed more light on the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy move next week.
The S&P 500 gained 15.4 points, or 0.27%, to 5,823.52, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 48.58 points, or 0.26%, to 18,567.19. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 273.17 points, or 0.65%, to 42,387.57
In U.S. stock moves, Boeing’s shares dipped 2.8% after the planemaker launched a stock offering that could raise up to $22 billion in a bid to shore up its finances amid an ongoing worker strike.
Industrial conglomerate 3M jumped 4.4%, giving a boost to the Dow, after JP Morgan hiked its price target on the company’s shares.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.88-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 147 new highs and 41 new lows on the NYSE. The S&P 500 posted 15 new 52-week highs and 2 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 101 new highs and 67 new lows.
Reuters, Globe staff