Market View

Major North American indices were lower this AM following President Donald Trump’s executive orders on two major Chinese tech companies. This week Nasdaq closed above 11,000 for the first time, while S&P and the Dow rode five-day winning streaks. Trump announced that he signed an order reimposing 10% aluminum tariffs on Canada. In retaliation, Canada announced tariffs on $3.6 billion worth of U.S. goods. Canada added about 419,000 jobs in July as the economy reopened. This adds up to an addition of 1.2 million jobs over the past two months, after almost 3 million jobs lost in March and April. The U.S. dollar rose while gold prices slipped. The U.S. dollar fell to a two-year low and gold eased on the rally. The Canadian dollar was 74.94. U.S. S&P500 was up 1.7% this week and the TSX ended the week up 1.6%. 

Following the earnings week, Energy and consumer discretionary jumped the highest, by 6.8% and 5.6%, respectively. Industrials rose 3.0%, followed by financials at 1.5%. Technology and consumer staples rose by 1.0% each. Magna International, Sun Life Financial, Manulife Financial, Canadian Natural Resources, TMX Group, WSP Global, Stantec Inc, and Kinaxis posted better than expected results. Brookfield Renewable, Bombardier, and Canadian Tire missed street estimates. The most heavily traded shares by volume were Trevali Mining, Enbridge Inc, and B2Gold Corp. 

5 from 5i

Here are five reads we found interesting last week:

• Had they listened to Schwab, RIAs would have better endured the market downturn, written by Michael Thrasher on RIAIntel
• Women as the next wave of growth in US wealth management, By Pooneh Baghai, Olivia Howard, Lakshmi Prakash, and Jill Zucker of McKinsey & Company
• Cash panickers: Coronavirus market volatility, authored by Thomas Luca and Jean Young of Vanguard
• Why Microsoft wants Tiktok, By Tom Warren of theverge.com
  
• Why markets don't seem to care if the economy stinks, by Barry Ritholtz on Bloomberg

Happy Reading & Stay Safe!

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Disclosure: Please note that the author does not hold a financial or other interest stocks or funds mentioned.