Canadian Market Gains Ground On Materials, Energy Sector Strength

(RTTNews) - After opening marginally down and edging further lower subsequently, the Canadian market moved above the flat line on Monday, supported by gains in materials and energy sectors on firm commodity prices.

Consumer staples, technology, healthcare, utilities, consumer discretionary and real estate stocks drifted lower.

Investors digested the national inflation data. Data showing an increase in Canada's core inflation raised expectations that the central bank will keep interest rates unchanged for now.

Worries about Middle East tensions and tariffs appeared to be rendering the mood cautious.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index was up 63.53 points or 0.17% at 36,793.79 a few minutes past noon.

The Materials Capped Index climbed 1.8%. Orla Mining soared 7.5%. Montage Gold, Wesdome Gold Mines, Iamgold Corp., OceanaGold Corporation, Trekor Metals, Eldorado Gold, Aya Gold & Silver and Equinox Gold Corp gained 3%-4.2%.

Energy stocks International Petroleum Corp., Vermilion Energy and Baytex Energy climbed up 3.5%, 2.5% and 2.3%, respectively. Baytex Energy, Cenovus Energy, Spartan Delta Corp, Canadian Natural Resources and Headwater Exploration also moved notably higher.

Among consumer staples stocks, Saputo shed more than 5%. Alimentation Couche-Tard, Weston George, Loblaw, Premium Brands Holdings Corporation, Maple Leaf Foods and Metro shed 1%-2%.

Technology stocks Descartes Systems Group, Lightspeed Commerce, BlackBerry, Shopify, Open Text Corporation, Computer Modelling Group, Kinaxis, Enghouse Systems, CGI and Docebo dropped by 1.5%-4%.

Data from Statistics Canada showed the inflation Rate in Canada increased to 3% in July (year-on-year) from 2.8% in June. The Consumer Price Index in Canada increased 0.5% in July over the previous month.

Core consumer prices in Canada increased 2.3% in July over the same month in the previous year.

A separate data from Statistics Canada showed car registrations in Canada decreased to 190,200 units in June from 190,600 Units in May.