Alphabet, Microsoft in Picture
Stocks in Toronto aped their American cousins and posted significant gains Wednesday.
The TSX jumped 281.88 points, or 1.5%, to end Wednesday at 19,254.56.
The Canadian dollar eased 0.31 cents to 77.97 cents U.S.
Techs had the best day, with Shopify recovering from the battering of Tuesday, up $4.51, or 11.1%, to $45.20, while Lightspeed Commerce climbed $1.67, or 7.2%, to $24.73.
Among energy issues, Athabasca Oil picked up 26 cents, or 11.9%, to $2.45, while Precision Drilling strengthened $4.17, or 5.4%, $81.86.
Industrials also performed well, with Ballard Power Systems improving 56 cents, or 6.6%, to $9.07, while Canadian National Railways triumphed $6.51, or 4.3%, to $157.12.
Health-care stepped back, however, with Tilray fading 16 cents, or 3.7%, to $4.20.
Among consumer staples, Loblaw Companies faltered $3.96, or 3.3%, to $117.14, while Saputo dropped 35 cents, or 1.1%, to $31.73.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange recovered 14.48 points, or 2.4%, to 619.76.
All but two of the 12 TSX subgroups reached into the sky, with information technology leaping 4.5%, energy up 2.8%, and industrials ahead 2.4%.
The two laggards were health-care and consumer staples, each sliding 0.5%.
ON WALLSTREET
Stocks rallied Wednesday after the Federal Reserve announced its much anticipated 0.75-percentage-point rate increase to fight inflation, but hinted that it could slow the pace of its hiking campaign at some point.
The Dow Jones Industrials popped 436.05 points, or 1.4%, to close at 32,197.59.
The S&P 500 rallied 102.5 points, or 2.6%, to 4,023.81
The NASDAQ leaped 469.85 points, or 4.1%, to 12,032.42.
Tech shares led gains after better-than-feared results from Alphabet and Microsoft.
Stocks hit their highs of the session in the afternoon as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell left the door open about the size of the central bank’s rate move at its next meeting in September and noted it would eventually slow the magnitude of rate hikes. Powell said in a press conference that the Fed could hike by 0.75 percentage point again in September, but that it would be dependent on the data.
Alphabet shares rose 8% after the tech giant’s quarterly report showed strong revenue from Google’s search business. Microsoft gained about 6.5% after reporting a 40% jump in revenue growth for Azure and cloud services.
The gains came even after both companies posted earnings and revenue that fell below analyst estimates.
Meta Platforms shares rose 5%, ahead of its earnings scheduled for after the bell. Amazon advanced more than 3% after getting hit by the retail carnage Tuesday. Apple added more than 1.5%.
Retailers rallied too as inflation concerns softened Wednesday afternoon. Walmart, which led retail declines in the previous session, climbed 3.5%. Target, Kohl’s, Ross Stores and Costco added more than 2% each.
Enphase Energy also popped on the back of its latest results, trading about 15% higher. Chipotle also added 13% following its mixed second-quarter earnings release.
More than 150 S&P 500 companies have reported calendar second-quarter earnings thus far. Of those names, roughly 70% have beaten analyst expectations
Treasury prices gained a bit of ground, lowering yields to 2.79%, from Tuesday’s 2.80%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices restocked $3.11 to $98.09 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices recaptured $14.30 to $1,732.00 U.S. an ounce.