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Wall Street Pauses as Fed Meeting Looms: Futures Hold Steady

U.S. stock futures were little changed on Tuesday as investors awaited the start of the Federal Reserve’s final policy meeting of the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq futures all hovered near flat, reflecting a cautious mood across Wall Street. The Fed is widely expected to keep interest rates unchanged, but traders are focused on Chair Jerome Powell’s comments and the central bank’s updated economic projections. Markets are looking for clues on when rate cuts might begin in 2024, with inflation cooling but still above the Fed’s long-term target. Recent gains in equities have been fueled by optimism that the Fed’s tightening cycle is over, yet uncertainty remains about how quickly monetary policy will shift toward easing. Until then, investors appear content to hold their positions, waiting for clearer signals from the Fed before making bold moves.
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Canadian tech stocks expected to deliver healthy returns in 2024, RBC says


The Canadian technology sector had a stellar performance in 2023, outperforming the broader market and delivering the highest returns since 2020. However, RBC Dominion Securities analysts Paul Treiber and Maxim Matushansky believe that the sector still has room to grow in 2024, albeit at a more moderate pace.

In a report released on Thursday, the analysts said that they expect healthy returns to be more widespread across Canadian tech stocks in 2024 than 2023, driven by three main factors: 1) valuation multiples for many Canadian tech stocks may rise in 2024; 2) organic growth and profitability may improve through 2024; and 3) the Consolidators, such as Constellation Software, CGI Group and Open Text, are likely to continue to create shareholder value through acquisitions.

The analysts noted that the valuation of the average stock in their coverage universe is below historical averages and peer group averages, and that a decline in interest rates could boost the discounted cash flow valuation of the sector. They also pointed out that most of the companies in their coverage are expected to be profitable in 2024, and that some of them may see growth stabilization or improvement as the pandemic-related headwinds ease.

The analysts also highlighted the potential of the Consolidators, which are disciplined allocators of capital that tend to find value in out of favour companies and have the capital to deploy in periods of financial or economic duress. They said that while Constellation and OpenText deployed record amounts of capital on acquisitions in 2023, they expect the other consolidators to deploy more capital on acquisitions in 2024 than 2023.

The analysts’ top five Canadian technology ideas for 2024 are: Constellation Software, Shopify, Kinaxis, Open Text and Calian Group.

The report also covered some of the other analyst actions on Thursday, such as target price adjustments for stocks in the software and services, mining and energy sectors. Some of the notable changes include: RBC’s upgrade of Alamos Gold to “outperform” from “sector perform”; CIBC’s upgrade of Aritzia to “outperformer” from “neutral”; and JP Morgan’s increase of its target price for Canadian Natural Resources to $102 from $101.

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