Canadian Market Up Firmly In Positive Territory; Tech Stocks Rebound

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market remained firmly up in positive territory a little past noon on Friday, holding early gains, thanks to sustained buying in materials, healthcare and technology stocks.

Several stocks from consumer discretionary, industrials and energy sectors too posted strong gains. A few stocks from the financials sector moved up as well.

Data showing a drop in the nation's unemployment rate in the month of January aided sentiment.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index, which surged to 32,478.02 earlier in the session, was up 370.85 points or 1.17% at 32,365.45 about a quarter past noon.

The Materials Capped Index climbed nearly 3.5%. New Gold Inc. shares soared 11%. Novagold surged nearly 10% and Perpetua Resources rallied 8%, while 5N Plus, First Majestic Silver, Aya Gold & Silver, Endeavour Silver, Skeena Resources, Discovery Silver Corp., Silvercorp Metals and Iamgold Corp gained 6%-7%.

Healthcare stocks Curaleaf Holdings and Bausch Health Companies climbed 8% and 2.5%, respectively.

In the technology sector, Bitfarm jumped nearly 19%. Celestica and Open Text Corporation gained 6.3% and 6.2%, respectively, with the latter rising on strong results. Coveo Solutions, Sylogist, Firan Technology Group, Kinaxis, BlackBerry and Computer Modelling gained 1%-4.3%.

Energy stocks Enerflex, Athabasca Oil Corp., Vermilion Energy, Baytex Energy, Tamarack Valley Energy, Parex Resources, Headwater Exploration, Ces Energy Solutions and Terravest Capital gained 3%-6.5%.

Industrials stocks Aecon, Bird Construction, Bombardier, Finning International, Ats Corp., Brookfield Business Partners, AtkinsRealis, CAE Inc., and Air Canada moved up 2.3%-5%.

Data from Statistics Canada showed employment in Canada fell dropped 25,000 or about 0.1% in January, marking the sharpest monthly decline since August 2025.

The unemployment rate in Canada fell to 6.5% in January from 6.8% in December 2025, marking the lowest level in 16 months.

Meanwhile average hourly wages in Canada increased 3,7% year-on-year in December 2025.

Canada's Ivey Purchasing Managers Index slipped to 50.9 in January 2026 from 51.9 in December, a report from Ivey Business School said.