The Nasdaq Composite opened 1 per cent lower on Thursday as Facebook led a selloff in technology stocks, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was buoyed after the European Union and the United States agreed to negotiate on trade.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 54.45 points, or 0.21 per cent, at the open to 25,468.55.
The S&P 500 opened lower by 10.58 points, or 0.37 per cent, at 2,835.49. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 84.20 points, or 1.06 percent, to 7,848.04 at the opening bell.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index was down 16.33 points, or 0.1 per cent, at 16,404.43.
The materials and tech sectors were both off 0.62 per cent. Barrick Gold fell 5 per cent, Agnico Eagle was off 4.5 per cent and Goldcorp declined 4.5 per cent. Both Barrick and New Gold, which fell 17 per cent, posted disappointing earnings.
Gold edged lower in response to an easing of trade tensions after the United States agreed to refrain from imposing tariffs on cars from the European Union.
The energy sector edged up 0.2 per cent, boosted by a 1.2 per cent gain in shares of Suncor Energy following a quarterly profit beat on Wednesday.
Canadian tech stocks got sideswiped by the bad news from Facebook. Shopify fell 2.7 per cent and BlackBerry was off 1.5 per cent.
In the U.S., Facebook shares plunged 17 per cent after the company said profit margins would plummet for several years due to the costs of improving privacy safeguards and slowing usage in its biggest advertising markets.
The warnings dragged on the other components in the high-growth FAANG group. Netflix declined 1.6 percent, Alphabet dropped 1.0 per cent. Amazon.com, due to report results after the bell, fell 2.1 per cent. Twitter, set to report on Friday, dropped 4.3 per cent.
The declines threatened to overshadow the lift to sentiment after the United States and EU agreed to work toward eliminating tariffs on industrial goods and increasing U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas, soybeans.
“It’s going to be hard for markets today with such a massive market cap stock down so much,” said Michael Antonelli, managing director, institutional sales trading at Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee.
“It is possible that easing tensions could outweigh something like Facebook, because that has been the biggest concern of markets for weeks and Facebook is a one-off negative event.”
Supervalu surged 64.6 per cent after United Natural Foods agreed to buy the supermarket operator in a deal valued at about US$2.9-billion. United Natural slipped 8.9 percent.
Of the 148 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings so far, 85.8 percent have topped estimates. If the beat rate holds, it will be the highest on record, dating back to the first quarter of 1994, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Ford fell 4 per cent after the automaker lowered its full-year profit forecast due to slumping sales and trade tariffs in China and its struggling business in Europe.
McDonald’s dipped 1 per cent after U.S. same-restaurant sales missed estimates even as the fast-food chain posted better-than-expected quarterly results.
Mattel dropped 6.5 per cent, while D.R. Horton gained 3.8 per cent after results. Mastercard declined 3.6 per cent and Visa fell 1.7 per cent despite the payments processors topping profit estimates.
Chipmakers were a bright spot. Advanced Micro Devices jumped 6.7 per cent, while Xilinx rose 11.3 per cent after the companies topped quarterly estimates.
Qualcomm gained 5.2 per cent, while NXP Semiconductors fell 6.2 percent. Qualcomm ended its $44-billion pursuit of NXP after failing to win Chinese regulatory approval.
With files from Reuters