S&P/TSX composite rises on basic materials stocks, U.S. markets move lower

TORONTO – Canadian and U.S. stock markets moved in opposite directions on Tuesday amid gains in the price of precious metals and declines in technology stocks.

“Big picture, one of the really important things is what happened last week with Kevin Warsh being appointed as the new Fed governor,” said Ryan Goulding, head of interest rates at Leith Wheeler Investment Counsel Ltd.     

He said that Warsh has been openly opposed to interventionism by the U.S. Federal Reserve and advocates that the U.S. central bank focus on the “real economy.” 

“With the refocus on the real economy, I think the market’s taking that as a Fed that’s going to be less supportive of asset prices in general,” Goulding said.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 204.72 points at 32,388.60.  

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 166.67 points at 49,240.99. The S&P 500 index was down 58.63 points at 6,917.81, while the Nasdaq composite was down 336.92 points at 23,255.19.

Some of the day’s strongest action remained in the metals markets. The April gold contract was up US$282.40 at US$4,935.00 an ounce.

Gold’s price climbed 6.1 per cent in the latest swing since its jaw-dropping rally suddenly halted last week. Silver’s price, which has been whipping through even wilder moves, rallied 8.2 per cent.

Gold and silver prices had been climbing for more than a year as investors looked for safer places to park their cash amid worries about everything from tariffs to a weaker U.S. dollar to heavy debt loads for governments worldwide. Their prices took off in particular last month, and gold’s price at one point had roughly doubled over 12 months.

But those rallies suddenly gave out last week, and gold’s price dropped from close to US$5,600 to less than US$4,500 on Monday. Silver plunged 31.4 per cent on Friday alone.

Goulding said a pullback was natural, but not indicative of a longer-term trend given the demand for gold among central banks around the globe. 

“We’ve got short-term volatility and a long-term plan that’s going to keep gold high and elevated for quite some time,” he said. 

Elsewhere on the TSX, shares of Thomson Reuters sank 15.83 per cent on Tuesday amid concerns it could face disruption from AI.

RBC analyst Drew McReynolds said in a note to investors on Tuesday that he expects content-driven technology providers, like Reuters, to evolve business models in response to the technology. 

“Not unlike other information services companies, we believe disconnecting from the broader AI disruption narrative in 2026 remains the key potential catalyst for the stock,” McReynolds said of Reuters. 

Meanwhile, several influential big tech stocks weighed on the U.S. market, including drops of 2.8 per cent for Nvidia and 2.9 per cent for Microsoft. Such giants have been hampered by worries that their stock prices shot too high and became too expensive following their yearslong dominance of the market.

The Canadian dollar traded for 73.25 cents US compared with 73.12 cents US on Monday.     

The March crude oil contract was up US$1.07 at US$63.21 per barrel. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 3, 2026.

— With files from The Associated Press.

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