S&P/TSX composite ends slightly lower, U.S. markets also fall as tech stocks drag

Trader Jonathan Mueller works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Canada’s main stock index swung between gains and losses on Tuesday, finishing in negative territory, while U.S. markets fell further amid concerns related to large technology stocks.   

Allan Small, senior investment adviser at iA Private Wealth, said Tuesday’s trading session was “a bit of a red day, but not as bad of a red day as we’ve seen in the last few trading sessions.” 

He said that often, when the performance of Canadian and U.S. markets differ, it is driven by tech stocks that make up a larger portion of indexes south of the border compared to the TSX.

“In Canada, we tend to move with banks and gold,” he said. 

The S&P/TSX composite index was down 39.75 points at 30,036.46.  

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 498.50 points at 46,091.74. The S&P 500 index was down 55.09 points at 6,617.32, while the Nasdaq composite was down 275.23 points at 22,432.85.

Small said fears around AI gripped the U.S. market. 

“Overall, the market right now is just worried about tech and tech spend and in particular AI spend. That seems to be the fear out there,” he said.

“We’ve gone from everybody being excited when money is spent to now questioning money being spent by a lot of these big companies.” 

Nvidia was again the heaviest weight on the market, and its drop of 2.8 per cent brought its loss for the month so far to more than 10 per cent. That’s a steep enough fall that Wall Street has a name for it: a correction.

“If Nvidia goes down, so goes the markets,” Small said, noting the company’s outsized influence on Tuesday’s trading session. 

Investors also digested a move by Microsoft to partner with artificial intelligence company Anthropic and Nvidia as part of an AI infrastructure deal that moves the software giant further away from its longtime alliance with OpenAI.

“These deals are one buys off the other, then the one borrows money off the other so they can buy off the other, and it is almost like a circle,” Small said. 

He added that investors will be paying close attention to Nvidia’s earnings on Wednesday, which will be significant in determining the direction of the market. 

“It’s obviously huge for tech, huge for semiconductors (and) chips. It’s going to tell us, is the spending out of control and ridiculous? Or is the spending that these big hyperscalers have been doing, does it all make sense? Is it all coming together?” Small said. 

The Canadian dollar traded for 71.44 cents US compared with 71.25 cents US on Monday.  

The January crude oil contract was up 81 cents US at US$60.67 per barrel. The December gold contract was down US$8.00 at US$4,066.50 an ounce.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 18, 2025.  

Daniel Johnson, The Canadian Press