Canadian Market Up Firmly, Set To End On Strong Note

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market remained firmly up in positive territory Thursday afternoon, thanks largely to hectic buying in the materials sector. Shares from healthcare, financials, utilities, technology and energy sectors too found fairly good support.

A drop in U.S. Treasury yields and weak oil prices following the Federal Reserve's interest rate hike and hopes that the central bank will strive to rein in inflation lifted investor sentiment.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index was up 367.30 points or 1.03% at 35,858.57 a little while ago.

The Materials Capped Index climbed nearly 3.5%. Americas Gold & Silver Corporation, Discovery Mining, Silvercorp Metals, Vizsla Silver Corp., Novagold Resources, Montage Gold Corp, Abrasilver Resource Corp., Aya Gold & Silver and Endeavour Silver Corp. gained 7%-10%.

Agnico Eagle Mines climbed 3.2%. Luca Mining Corp., a Mexico-focused mining company, announced an agreement to acquire 100% of the El Barqueño property from Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. The company will pay $10 million at closing through the issuance of common shares to Agnico Eagle.

MDA Space, GFL Environmental, Aecon Group, Hut 8 Corp., Magna International, Nutrien, Bank of Nova Scotia, Kinaxis and Toronto-Dominion Bank moved notably higher.

Canfor Corporation, Evertz Technologies, Bausch + Lomb, Boyd Group Services, Cascades, Rogers Communications, Thomson Reuters and Bombardier drifted lower.

Data from Statistics Canada showed producer prices in Canada rose 1.3% month-on-month in August, accelerating from a downwardly revised 0.3% increase in July and contrasting with market expectations of a flat reading.

Canada's raw materials prices rose 3.1% month-on-month in August, rebounding from a 2.1% decline in July and well above market expectations of a 0.7% gain.