Gold miners, not trade negotiators, drove Friday's gains, and the currency signal underneath it tells advisors which crisis is actually live heading into the weekend.

The TSX Composite closed nearly unchanged Thursday even as banks fell and gold miners rallied sharply, with today's session set to turn on whether the US and Canada finalize a trade deal before tonight's tariff deadline.

A 50 percent US tariff on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods is due to take effect at midnight unless a trade deal is finalized, and USD/CAD has spent two weeks pricing the outcome ahead of the headlines.

Canada's overall exports to the US fell 5.8 percent. The two disputed categories fell 22 and 81 percent, and that gap is the entire legal case.

Friday's Section 338 deadline runs on entry date, not ship date, and that distinction is the real planning window this week.

Trump paused Section 338 tariffs three hours before the deadline. The market is pricing it as resolved. It isn't.

A genuine Strait of Hormuz escalation and a fresh 19 year high in long yields hit the tape on the same afternoon. Only one of them moved gold.

A 50% US tariff on Canadian goods takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday with no exemption and no runway. What advisors can still control sits inside the CCPC, not outside it.

Between Wednesday's TSX record and Friday's oil reversal, a bigger story took shape: the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada are now pulling in opposite directions, and a fifty percent tariff lands in the gap between their next two decisions.

Trump's 50% tariffs on wine, cement and a dozen other categories take effect August 19. For CCPC owners in the affected sectors, that date is now a planning deadline.

Three new Section 338 proclamations put a 50 percent tariff on Canadian dairy, alcohol, and select vehicle categories starting August 19, but the sectors the U.S. chose not to touch say more about where this goes next.

The mandatory six-year review of the trade agreement became an annual one after the United States declined to extend it on July 1, and that shift in frequency, not any single tariff line, is what changes the planning calculus for CCPC clients with U.S.-facing revenue.

The United States declined to extend CUSMA for a new sixteen year term at the July 1 review, leaving the agreement in force but subject to annual renegotiation through 2036. For CCPC owners with cross border exposure, that changes the planning calculus now.

The July 1 non-renewal changed no tariff rates, but it shifted Canadian business owners from a six-year trade policy horizon to an annual one.

The mandatory six-year CUSMA review formally began this week, with auto rules of origin and EV supply chains on the table. Most advisors are watching the trade angle. The more immediate planning question is what a prolonged negotiation means for the clients whose registered accounts hold US-listed securities.

Trump lands in Beijing tomorrow for the first U.S. presidential state visit to China in nearly a decade. Three converging files — Iran, Hormuz, and CUSMA — all run through the same meeting. The outcome affects Canadian energy, Canadian trade, and the Bank of Canada's rate path.