Stocks mixed to kick off earnings week

The Dow, S&P and TSX drifted down Monday as the Nasdaq ticked up to start earnings week. Compared to recent weeks, the Dow’s 1.39% shave and Nasdaq’s 0.5% climb was modest as the VIX continued to decline, down to 41.17 (half that four weeks ago). However, the Dow fell as much as 2.5% during Monday’s session, betraying jitters felt by investors who are wandering into a fog of uncertain earnings outlooks.

What will corporate profits look like for 2020 and how bad will losses be in the past quarter?

On both sides of the border, consumer discretionary, tech and communication stocks gained. For instance, AMD jumped 5.29%. In Canada, real estate and industrials took a hit. Energy slipped only 0.8% on the TSX, though WCS dipped below $40/barrel again. The sell-off was in reaction to OPEC and its allies finalizing oil cuts over the weekend to an historic 9.7 million barrels a day, but markets were remained even that isn’t enough to reduce the current oversupply, driven by the pandemic. Gold stocks were the biggest gainers with Yamana Gold, B2Gold and Kinross soaring past 10% in heavy trading. In contrast, Aurora Cannabis plunged 13% after announcing a reverse stock split.

💿 Advanced Micro Devices +5.29%
🥇 Yamana Gold Inc. +10%
🥇 B2Gold Corp. +10%
🌿 Aurora Cannabis -13%