TORONTO — Gains in base metal stocks helped lift Canada’s main stock index on Friday while U.S. markets also rose, led by tech stocks as the Nasdaq jumped two per cent.
Large tech names fuelled the rally after Microsoft and Alphabet reported solid earnings, said Mona Mahajan, senior investment strategist at Edward Jones. Alphabet also announced its first quarterly dividend.
The higher interest rate environment means companies with a lot of cash are getting better returns on it and can give some of that back to shareholders, said Mahajan.
There was some concern about what the tech giants’ results would hold after Meta’s earnings and outlook earlier this week didn’t please investors as much, but those concerns didn’t pan out, said Mahajan.
“Clearly the large-cap tech earnings that came out last night really were very solid,” she said.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 153.86 points at…
