Canadian bank earnings: when the Big Six report
Canada’s six largest banks all run an October 31 fiscal year, so their quarterly results land in four tight, predictable windows — not the January/April/July/October cadence you know from U.S. companies. Here’s the schedule, why it works this way, and where to find the live dates.
The Big Six
Canada’s banking sector is dominated by six lenders — the “Big Five” plus National Bank of Canada. All six trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange (most also cross-list in New York):
| Bank | TSX ticker | Fiscal year-end |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) | RY | Oct 31 |
| Toronto-Dominion (TD) | TD | Oct 31 |
| Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank) | BNS | Oct 31 |
| Bank of Montreal (BMO) | BMO | Oct 31 |
| CIBC | CM | Oct 31 |
| National Bank of Canada | NA | Oct 31 |
The four reporting windows
Because the fiscal year ends October 31, each quarter is reported about a month after it closes. The windows are remarkably consistent from year to year:
- Q1 (Nov–Jan) — reported in late February.
- Q2 (Feb–Apr) — reported in late May.
- Q3 (May–Jul) — reported in late August.
- Q4 & full year (Aug–Oct) — reported in late November to early December.
Within each window the six banks report over just a few business days — which is why “bank earnings week” is a recurring fixture on Bay Street, and why the group tends to trade together around it.
Why they all report the same week
It comes down to the shared October 31 fiscal year-end. Most companies run a calendar fiscal year (ending December 31) and report in January, April, July and October. The Canadian banks don’t — their year ends October 31, a convention dating back over a century, so their quarters and reporting dates are shifted and clustered. The practical upshot: if you follow one of the Big Six, you effectively follow all six on the same schedule.
What the market watches
Bank results are read less for the headline earnings-per-share number and more for a few recurring themes:
- Provisions for credit losses (PCLs) — how much each bank is setting aside for loans that may go bad. Rising provisions signal caution about the economy.
- Net interest margin — the spread the bank earns between what it lends at and what it pays for deposits.
- Segment mix — e.g. TD and BMO’s U.S. retail exposure, Scotiabank’s international/Latin America footprint, RBC’s capital-markets and wealth arms.
- The dividend — the Big Six are core holdings for Canadian income investors, so any change to the payout draws outsized attention.
SignalStreet tracks the confirmed and estimated report dates for all six banks alongside U.S. and other TSX names — plus each bank’s ex-dividend dates on the dividend calendar.