S&P/TSX composite down more than 200 points, U.S. stock markets also fall

A drop in gold prices helped shave more than 200 points off Canada’s main stock index on Thursday, while U.S. markets retreated from record highs.

“The market’s just kind of taking a bit of a breather, but I wouldn’t characterize it as anything more than that,” said Allan Small, a senior investment adviser at iA Private Wealth Inc.

“I would not be surprised to see the markets higher tomorrow.”

The S&P/TSX composite index was down 232.01 points at 30,269.98.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 243.36 points at 46,358.42. The S&P 500 index fell 18.61 points at 6,735.11, while the Nasdaq composite lost 18.75 points at 23,024.63.

Markets continue to be driven by bullish sentiment around tech, particularly in the artificial intelligence space, Small said.

He added investors don’t seem to be making too much of the U.S. government shutdown — at least not at this stage.

“The path of least resistance seems to be to the upside, and nothing seems to be taking this market down yet,” Small said.

“I fully anticipate at some point, perhaps even as soon as this month, we may see a few days in a row of negative markets, but for now it seems like any sell is met with a lot of buying activity.”

Small said he doesn’t know what will make markets come back down to earth in a sustained way, since recent geopolitical and tariff turmoil doesn’t seem to have done it.

“It’s going to take something big and it’s going to have to take something that catches the market off guard, because right now everybody is kind of waiting for and looking for that one thing, and it usually comes when you least expect it.”

On U.S. markets, Dell Technologies sank 5.2 per cent for the biggest loss in the S&P 500, but that only trimmed its surge since talking up its AI growth opportunities at an investment conference earlier in the week. The stock is still up nearly 11 per cent for the week so far.

Tesla also weighed on the market after falling 0.7 per cent. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a preliminary evaluation of its “full self-driving” system due to safety concerns.

Those losses helped offset a 4.3 per cent rise in Delta Air Lines, which reported a stronger profit for the summer than analysts expected.

The December gold contract was down US$97.90 at US$3,972.60 an ounce after this year’s remarkable rally.

Whenever the U.S. dollar falls, the price of gold tends to rise, and vice versa.

“I’ve been waiting for gold to fall back for quite some time,” Small said. “I’m surprised it got this high.”

The Canadian dollar closed at 71.43 cents US compared with 71.67 cents US on Wednesday.

The November crude oil contract was down US$1.04 at US$61.51 per barrel.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 9, 2025.

— with files from The Associated Press.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)