Tech stocks rally in U.S. as base metals lift TSX

Gains in base metal stocks helped to lift Canada’s main stock index on Friday while U.S. markets also rose, led by tech stocks as the Nasdaq jumped two per cent.

Large tech names fuelled the rally after Microsoft and Alphabet reported solid earnings, said Mona Mahajan, senior investment strategist at Edward Jones. Alphabet also announced its first quarterly dividend.

The higher-interest-rate environment means companies with a lot of cash are getting better returns on it and can give some of that back to shareholders, said Mahajan.

There was some concern about what the tech giants’ results would hold after Meta’s earnings and outlook this week didn’t please investors as much, but those concerns didn’t pan out, said Mahajan. “Clearly the large-cap tech earnings that came out last night really were very solid,” she said.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 153.86 points at 38239.66. The S&P 500 index was up 51.54 points at 5099.96, while the Nasdaq composite was up 316.14 points at 15927.90.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 83.86 points at 21969.24.

Friday also brought the U.S. personal consumption expenditure report, which showed inflation remaining stubbornly high in March but wasn’t much worse than forecast. That’s the preferred inflation gauge for the U.S. Federal Reserve, said Mahajan.

The report was a relief for investors after several recent important economic reports came in stronger than expected, she said, causing markets to push back expectations for rate cuts in the U.S.

“Markets are still expecting at least just one rate cut from the Fed in

September, and potentially from the Bank of Canada as early as June or July,” she said. “Rate cuts might have been delayed, but they’re not fully cancelled.”

The past couple of weeks have reinforced that the path to the Fed’s target for inflation is going to be a bumpy one, said Mahajan.

“If the other inflation prints were cooler than expected, this one might have rattled the markets more, but because we’ve gotten hotter, this one felt more in line,” she noted.

This was a volatile week, and it’s looking possible that April could be the first down month for Wall Street in a while, Mahajan said. She described it as a “contained” correction, however, and a “healthy part of the process” after a significant rally so far this year.

The Canadian dollar traded for 73.16 cents US compared with

73.05 cents US on Thursday.

The June crude oil contract was up 28 cents at $83.85 US per barrel and the May natural gas contract was down three cents at $1.61 US per 1,000 cubic feet. The June gold contract was up $4.70 US at $2,347.20 US an ounce, and the May copper contract was up four cents at $4.56 US a pound.

Cenovus fined $2.5 million over N.L.’s largest oil spill

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — Cenovus Energy has been ordered to pay a $2.5-million fine for its role in the largest offshore oil spill ever recorded in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The fine was handed down in provincial court Friday and the company has 30 days to pay up. The 2018 spill from a flowline connector in the White Rose oilfield released about 250,000 litres of oil into the Atlantic, east of St. John’s.