TORONTO — Fears of escalation in the Russia-Ukraine conflict weighed on stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic Tuesday, but Canada's main index recovered from early losses to end slightly up, while U.S. stock markets were mixed.
Markets started the day down after Russia said Ukraine fired six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles at it. Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally lowered the threshold for Russia’s use of its nuclear weapons.
"The day opened down on worries of escalation, tension escalations in eastern Europe between Russia and Ukraine," said Philip Petursson, chief investment strategist at IG Wealth Management.
"That spooked the markets a little bit, but that seemed to kind of dissipate fairly quickly."
The S&P/TSX composite index was trading down almost 200 points early on before ending the day up 33.83 points at 25,010.77, as gains in mining stocks helped offset losses in the energy and industrial sectors.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average closed down 120.66 points at 43,268.94. The S&P 500 index was up 23.36 points at 5,916.98, while the Nasdaq composite was up 195.66 points at 18,987.47.
U.S. stocks were boosted by some big names moving higher on an earnings day. Results from Walmart Inc. helped push its stock up three per cent to an all-time high, while Nvidia Corp. was up almost five per cent ahead of results after market close.
European indexes however closed down on the day.
The Canadian market may have also been weighed down somewhat by the latest inflation data, which showed a two per cent increase in October to come in slightly higher than expectations.
"You've got real estate that's down, you got staples that are down, these might be a little bit more in response to the slightly higher inflation print that we had in Canada," said Petursson.
The report from Statistics Canada showed an increase from the 1.6 per cent inflation in September, driven in part by shifts in gasoline prices.
The upward shift has some thinking the Bank of Canada could have a slower path to easing ahead, which has been factored into interest sensitivities and could have weigh on the day, said Petursson.
Investors now see about a 30 per cent chance that the central bank cuts its key rate by 0.5 percentage points in December, down from about a 50 per cent chance a week ago.
The potentially slower trend down also helped the Canadian dollar, which traded for 71.53 cents US compared with 71.21 cents US on Monday.
The January crude oil contract ended up seven cents at US$69.24 per barrel and the December natural gas contract was up three cents at US$3.00 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$16.40 at US$2,631 an ounce and the December copper contract was up two cents at US$4.14 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 19, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)
The Canadian Press
