TORONTO – Strength in the financials sector helped Canada’s main stock index finish higher on Wednesday as the big banks continue to report results, while U.S. stock markets also rose.
“The dominant impact on the Canadian markets anyway is the banks reporting their third-quarter results this week,” said Brian Madden, chief investment officer at First Avenue Investment Counsel.
RBC and National Bank reported earnings on Wednesday.
“Mixed bag there, Royal is trading much higher after a very good quarter on pretty much every metric that you can measure. And National is trading down three or four per cent after missing street earnings estimates with some weakness in their personal and commercial business and their capital markets unit,” Madden said.
RBC shares finished five per cent higher, while National Bank declined 3.79 per cent.
Given its outsized weight, Madden said the rise in RBC shares essentially drove the overall index higher.
“So that’s the biggest driver, but the other banks mostly are trading higher in sympathy, with the exception of National, which is selling off after a relatively weaker quarter.”
Toronto-Dominion Bank and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce are scheduled to report results on Thursday.
“In the case of TD, it’s a bit of a different story there, obviously, trying to reinvent themselves after having to radically throttle back their U.S. growth aspirations. So I think the bar is set relatively low for TD,” he said.
Bank of Nova Scotia and BMO Financial Group reported third-quarter results on Tuesday.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 93.12 points at 28,433.00.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 147.16 points at 45,565.23. The S&P 500 index was up 15.46 points at 6,481.40, while the Nasdaq composite was up 45.87 points at 21,590.14. The S&P 500 rose 0.2 per cent, good enough to nudge the benchmark index past the record high it set two weeks ago.
In U.S. markets, investors waited for the highly anticipated earnings update from computer chip giant Nvidia that would provide insights into the current state and future of artificial intelligence.
“I think that’s the one that everybody is waiting for. Not surprisingly, it’s the most valuable company in the world, over US$4 trillion in market capitalization, and it’s grown to comprise over eight per cent of the weight of the S&P 500,” Madden said.
“So as the stock moves, so moves the whole of the U.S. equity market.”
Nvidia’s sales of its artificial intelligence chipsets rose at a slower pace than analysts anticipated during the company’s latest quarter, a letdown likely to stoke worries that the AI craze has been fool’s gold.
Even so, Nvidia’s profit of US$26.4 billion, or US$1.08 per share, was higher than analysts predicted, as was its total revenue of US$46.7 billion.
But Nvidia’s stock still slipped nearly three per cent in extended trading after the fiscal second quarter report came out, indicating the performance wasn’t enough to allay investors’ fears.
The Canadian dollar traded for 72.35 cents US compared with 72.27 cents US on Tuesday.
The October crude oil contract was up 90 cents US at US$64.15 per barrel. The December gold contract was up US$15.60 at US$3,448.60 an ounce.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 27, 2025.
— With files from The Associated Press
Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD, TSX:BNS, TSX:BMO, TSX: RY, TSX: NA)
