TSX Ends Modestly Higher As Technology Stocks Rise

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market ended modestly higher on Wednesday, led by gains in technology stocks.

In addition to digesting the Bank of Canada's interest rate decision, investors reacted to a slew of earnings announcements from Canadian companies.

The mood was largely cautious amid concerns about U.S. interest rates following hawkish remarks by Fed Chair Jerome Powell during his testimony before the Congress.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index ended with a gain of 70.99 points or 0.35% at 20,346.53. The index touched a low of 20,270.43 and a high of 20,438.15 in the session.

The Capped Information Technology Index climbed 2.4%. Nuvei Corp (NVEI.TO) soared nearly 12%. The company reported adjusted net income of $68.0 million for the first quarter of 2023, down 4% from $70.6 million a year ago.

Alithya Corp (ALYA.TO) surged 4.75%. Payfare Inc (PAY.TO), BlackBerry (BB.TO), Constellation Software (CSU.TO) and Shopify Inc (SHOP.TO) gained 3 to 4%.

Materials stock Stella-Jones Inc (SJ.TO) gained about 4.3%. The company reported a net income of $36 million for the fourth quarter of 2022, compared with net income of $22 million a year ago.

The Bank of Canada left rates unchanged today, following through after having signaled in January that it was down raising interest rates.

The bank's Governing Council decided to maintain the policy rate at 4.5 percent, noting global economic developments have evolved broadly in line with the January outlook.

However, the Canadian central bank said it is prepared to increase the policy rate further if needed to return inflation to the 2 percent target

The central bank also said it is continuing its policy of quantitative tightening, which it said is complementing the restrictive stance of the policy rate.

The bank cautioned that the strength of China's recovery and the impact of Russia's war in Ukraine remain key sources of upside risk for commodity prices, and noted Canadian economic growth came in flat in the fourth quarter of 2022, lower than projected, reflecting a sizeable slowdown in inventory investment.

Data released by Statistics Canada showed the nation recorded a trade surplus of C$1.92 billion in January 2023. Exports increased to $67.02 billion in the month from C$64.3 billion a month earlier, while imports surged to C$65.1 billion from C$63.1 million in the previous month.