Tech stocks lift the TSX while gold slips and traders brace for August 19 tariffs
The S&P 500 closed above 7,800 for the first time on Thursday, notching a record as a softer reading on US wholesale inflation trimmed the odds of another US Federal Reserve interest rate increase.
The benchmark rose 0.65 percent to 7,798.99.
The Nasdaq composite gained 0.81 percent to 26,803.03, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.13 percent, or 69.72 points, to 53,839.99.
The US July producer price index (PPI), which tracks what wholesalers pay for goods and materials, came in unchanged on the month, according to figures reported by CNBC, below the 0.2 percent gain economists had forecast.
Wholesale prices ran 4.7 percent higher than a year earlier, AP News reported, easing from June's 5.5 percent pace.
The data followed an in-line consumer price index the day before.
Traders now put the chance of a September hike at 35 percent, down from about 50 percent two days earlier, per CME Group data cited by AP News.
Any increase would be the American central bank's first in more than three years, and US President Donald Trump has pressed for lower rates, AP News noted.
"The inflation picture at the moment isn't enough to derail what really remains an earnings-driven market," Bill Merz, head of capital markets research at US Bank Asset Management, told CNBC.
Merz said the recent moderation in CPI and PPI was constructive for now, but that it remained to be seen how the Fed under its new chair, Kevin Warsh, would interpret the figures.
North of the border, the S&P/TSX composite index rose 97.15 points to 36,759.29, as strength in technology offset weakness elsewhere, BNN Bloomberg reported.
"The TSX tech stocks are also very strong today broadly but the rest of the market, not so much," said Brian Madden, chief investment officer at First Avenue Investment Counsel.
Materials led the decliners as gold retreated, with the December contract falling US$47.10 to US$4,420.40 an ounce.
Investors also weighed escalating Canada-US trade tensions ahead of a new round of 50 percent tariffs on a range of Canadian goods set to take effect August 19, according to BNN Bloomberg.
Dominic LeBlanc, the Canada-US trade minister, was scheduled to meet US trade representative Jamieson Greer on Thursday.
Madden said the past 18 months have taught him and his peers "to do and not to do" when trade or tariff headlines break.
Those headlines often carry "as much, if not more, misinformation than information," he said.
Brent crude fell about 2 percent to settle at US$87.07 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate settled at US$81.25, as traders weighed softer demand against the continuing US-Iran war.
The Canadian dollar traded at 71.75 cents US, down from 71.79 cents US on Wednesday, per BNN Bloomberg.
Memory chip makers rallied, with Sandisk jumping 13.7 percent and Micron Technology gaining 4.2 percent, Reuters reported, while Netflix climbed 5.4 percent after investor Bill Ackman disclosed a new Pershing Square stake.
"It's an earnings boom, not a bubble," said Jay Hatfield, chief executive of Infrastructure Capital Advisors.
Cisco Systems fell 8.4 percent as its revenue forecast disappointed, and Tapestry, the owner of Coach, tumbled more than 16 percent on muted annual guidance, according to Reuters.
The 10-year Treasury yield slipped to 4.65 percent from 4.68 percent late Wednesday, AP News reported.
