Canadian Market Up Marginally; Technology Stocks Rally

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market is up slightly in positive territory Friday afternoon, amid hopes the Bank of Canada will hold interest rates unchanged at the next meeting after data showed the nation's gross domestic growth stagnated in the month of July.

Data from Statistics Canada showed the Canadian GDP stagnated in July, matching the initial estimate, and following a 0.2% decline in June. According to preliminary estimates, Canada's economy is expected to have grown by 0.1% in August.

Technology stocks are up with strong gains. Several stocks from healthcare, consumer discretionary and materials sectors are also notably higher. A few stocks from communications section are up as well.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index is up 4.94 points or 0.03% at 19,595.68 nearly an hour past noon. The index climbed to a high of 19,707.58 earlier in the day.

The Information Technology Capped Index is up nearly 1.5%. Tecsys Inc (TCS.TO), Sylogist Ltd. (SYZ.TO), Dye & Durham (DND.TO) and Shopify Inc (SHOP.TO) are gaining 3.4 to 5%.

Docebo Inc (DCBO.TO), Lightspeed Commerce (LSPD.TO), Kinaxis Inc (KXS.TO), Descartes Systems Group (DSG.TO), CGI Group (GIB.A.TO) and Celestica Inc (CLS.TO) are also notably higher.

Healthcare stock Tilray Inc (TLRY.TO) is up nearly 3%. Chartwell Retirement (CSH.UN.TO) and Bausch Health Companies (BHC.TO) are up 1.1% and 1%, respectively.

Aritzia Inc (ATZ.TO), up 7.8%, is the top gainer in the Consumer Discretionary Index. Aritzia reported second quarter net revenue of $534 million, an increase of approximately 2% on top of outstanding growth of 50% in the second quarter of Fiscal 2023 and 75% in the second quarter of Fiscal 2022.

Brp Inc (DOO.TO), Gildan Activewear (GIL.TO), Mty Food Group (MTY.TO), Linamar Corp (LNR.TO) and Sleep Country Canada Holdings (ZZZ.TO) are gaining 1.5 to 2.3%.

BlackBerry (BB.TO) is down 2.7%. The company reported a net loss of US$42 million for the second quarter as revenues declined 21% from a year earlier. The company had posted a net loss of US$54 million in the second quarter of the previous financial year.