Canadian Market Modestly Higher At Noon

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market is up firmly in positive territory Thursday morning, led by gains in technology, consumer staples and financials sectors. The undertone is firm after data showed U.S. non-farm payroll employment increased more than expected in the month of June.

Meanwhile, investors continued to follow the developments on the trade front where negotiations are on ahead of the July 9 deadline for Trump administration's reciprocal tariffs.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index is up 125.75 points or 0.47% at 26,995.41 a little before noon.

The Information Technology Capped Index is up 1.71%. Tecsys is up nearly 4.5% and Celestica Inc is gaining about 3.2%. BlackBerry, Descartes Systems Group, Docebo and Shopify are up 2 to 3%. Constellation Software, Kinaxis, Bitfarms and Lightspeed Commerce are also notably higher.

Among consumer staples stocks, Metro Inc., George Weston, Loblaw, Empire Company and Jamieson Wellness are gaining 1 to 2%.

In the financials sector, Brookfield Corporation is rising more than 2% and Broofield Asset Management is up nearly 2%. Sprott, Laurentian Bank, Onex Corp, Royal Bank of Canada and Fairfax Financial Holdings are advancing 1 to 1.5%.

Hut 8 Corp. is up nearly 4%. Hut 8 through its joint venture Far North Power Corp. with Macquarie Equipment Finance Ltd., has secured five-year capacity contracts for all four of its Ontario-based natural gas-fired power plants.

The Labor Department said non-farm payroll employment shot up by 147,000 jobs in June after jumping by an upwardly revised 144,000 jobs in May. Economists had expected employment to increase by 110,000 jobs compared to the addition of 139,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month.

The report also said the unemployment rate in the U.S. edged down to 4.1% in June from 4.2% in May. The unemployment rate was expected to inch up to 4.3%.

On the Canadian economic front, Canada posted a trade deficit of C$5.9 billion in May, narrowing from the C$7.6 billion shortfall recorded in April. Imports fell by 1.6% to C$ 66.7 billion, while exports rose by 1.1% from the previous month to C$60.8 billion.