Canadian Market Moderately Higher As Materials Stocks Rise

(RTTNews) - Canadian stock market is up firmly in positive territory a little past noon on Friday, supported by gains in materials, financials and consumer discretionary sectors.

Stocks from real estate, healthcare, industrials and communications sectors are also finding good support, while energy stocks are a bit weak.

Investors are reacting to some corporate earnings updates and the latest batch of Canadian economic data.

Worries about Middle East tensions and fears of monetary tightening by some central banks, including the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada in the foreseeable future appear to be limiting market's upside.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index was up 234.58 points or 0.67% at 35,427.24 about an hour past noon.

FirstService Corporation is up nearly 6%. The company reported earnings per share of $1.75 for the second quarter, compared to $1.71 a year earlier.

Thomson Reuters, Colliers International Group, CGI Inc., Constellation Software, Onex Corporation, Discovery Mining, Open Text Corporation, K92 Mining, Power Corporation of Canada, OceanaGold Corporation, Air Canada, Kinross Gold, Teck Resources, Wheaton Precious Metals and Bombardier are up 2%-4%.

Celestica Inc is down 5.5%. Saputo is declining by 4.3%. Athabasca Oil Corp., Methanex, Tamarack Valley Energy, Strathcona Resources, Hut 8 Corp., West Fraser Timber, Cameco, Cenovus Energy, Mda Space and Nutrien are down 1%-3%.

Canadian National Railway Company reported second-quarter net income of C$1.25 billion, compared with C$1.17 billion in the previous year. Earnings per share were C$2.06 versus C$1.87 last year. The stock is down by about 0.5%.

In economic news, the industrial product price index in Canada fell by 1.4% in June from a month earlier, marking the sharpest drop since December 2023. On annual basis, producer prices increased 12.4% in June, after rising 13.6% a month earlier.

Raw materials prices fell 6.9% in June after a 0.5% revised increase in May. Annually, raw materials prices surged 20.7% in June following a 33.4% jump in May.

Wholesale sales in Canada increased 2.7% in June, according to preliminary data, while manufacturing sales edged lower by 0.1%.