Canadian Market Modestly Higher In Cautious Trade

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market is up in positive territory around noon on Friday, riding on gains in construction discretionary, communications and industrials sectors.

A few stocks from financials and materials section too have moved up sharply. Energy stocks are weak.

The mood is cautious with investors assessing the possible move by the Federal Reserve at its December meeting. A few Fed officials, including St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard have said interest rates need to be raised further in order to tame inflation.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index is up 50.74 or 0.26 19,935.32 a few minutes before noon. The index touched a low of 19,896.09 and a high of 19,987.58.

Ag Growth International (AFN.TO) is rising 4.7%. Molson Coors Canada Inc (TPX.B.TO), Teck Resources (TECK.A.TO), Rogers Communications (RCI.B.TO), Magna International (MG.TO), George Weston (WN.TO), Thomson Reuters (TRI.TO) and FirstService Corporation (FSV.TO) are up 1.5 to 2.5%.

Topaz Energy (TPZ.TO), Boralex Inc (BLX.TO), Shopify Inc (SHOP.TO), Suncor Energy (SU.TO) and Nuvei Corporation (NVEI.TO) are down 2 to 4%.

Kinaxis Inc (KXS.TO), Premium Brands Holdings Corporation (PBH.TO), Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ.TO) and Precision Drilling Corporation (PD.TO) are also notably lower.

On the economic front, data from Statistics Canada showed prices of raw materials in Canada increased 9% year-on-year in October, following an upwardly revised 12.7% jump in September. Month-over-month, the raw materials price index in Canada went up 1.3% to 145.6.

Another data from the same bureau showed producer prices in Canada rose by 2.4% month-over-month in October, the most since March, following a revised flat reading in September. On a yearly basis, producer prices rose by 10.1% after an upwardly revised 9.1% increase in the previous month.