TORONTO — Canada’s main stock index finished narrowly positive to add to its all-time highs, helped by gains in the utilities and industrial sectors.
“Markets have been buoyed by earnings. I think that there’s pretty tremendous optimism in markets right now,” said Kevin Burkett, portfolio manager at Victoria-based Burkett Asset Management.
“We’re in that interesting time where we’re coming to the end of the summer and as much as you’d like to think markets are more sophisticated, I do find that come September, October, people get back to work and recalibrate around expectations,” Burkett said.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 17.59 points at 36,475.92.
Some of the bigger movers included shares of Cargojet, which rose 8.59 per cent after it reported a $7 million second-quarter profit, up from a $3.2 million loss last year.
Burkett said Cargojet’s results were positive with stronger-than-expected revenue.
Meanwhile, Cineplex Inc. lost 5.3 per cent even though it swung to a profit in the second quarter, helped by a strong film slate and presentations of FIFA World Cup matches.
RBC analyst Drew McReynolds said in a note to investors that the company fell short on adjusted profit.
“The results today suggested that there are still some challenges ahead in terms of how they attract people to come out to movie theatres; it’s very expensive,” Burkett said.
Burkett said markets overall appear to be faring well despite recent Canada-U.S. trade tensions.
“There are these headlines that maybe 10 years ago would have spooked markets, but I think markets have desensitized to a lot of that rhetoric, and I think we wait to see,” he said.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 184.13 points at 53,791.85. The S&P 500 index was down 24.91 points at 7,728.20, while the Nasdaq composite was down 159.91 points at 26,445.45.
Wall Street’s attention was focused on Wednesday, when the U.S. government will release the latest monthly reading on inflation.
“That’ll be interesting; we had a lot of expectations around interest rate cuts that had seemed to have gone away while we wait to see whether oil results in inflation,” Burkett said.
Economists expect the report to show U.S. inflation remains high but that it decelerated to 3.4 per cent in July from 3.5 per cent in June.
That could help the U.S. Federal Reserve, whose members are notably split on whether they should be raising the country’s interest rates to keep a lid on inflation.
While higher rates could help slow the increases of prices on store shelves, they would also slow the overall U.S. economy. They would also undercut prices for stocks and other investments.
The Canadian dollar traded for 71.80 cents US compared with 71.73 cents US on Monday.
The September crude oil contract was up US$1.07 at US$83.20 per barrel.
The December gold contract was up US$21.40 at US$4,441.10 an ounce.
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Daniel Johnson, The Canadian Press
With files from The Associated Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 11, 2026.
