Markets in Toronto made a small gain in Wednesday morning trading as mining stocks rebounded, while a further slide in oil prices weighed on shares of energy companies.
The S&P/TSX Composite gained 46.52 points to greet noon Wednesday at 14,395.62, after Tuesday’s collapse of nearly 250 points.
The Canadian dollar eased off 0.07 cents to 75.77 cents U.S.
Teck Resources advanced 3.7% to $22.05. CIBC raised its price target on the diversified miner's stock to $28.00 from $23.00
Barrick Gold rose 1.9% to $23.21 as gold prices edged higher.
Silver Wheaton Corp gained 2.9% to $36.18. The chief executive officer of the company told the media it was interested in working with
Barrick to finance a restart of its Pascua-Lama gold project in South America.
The most influential weights included Cenovus Energy, which fell 2.2% to $17.72, and Crescent Point Energy, which lost 1.7% to $16.89
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange improved 3.18 points to 800.35
All but one of the 12 TSX subgroups were positive midday, as health-care stocks were 1.3% haler, consumer staples showed 1% more vitality, and materials up 0.7%
The lone laggard was energy, listing 0.3% lower.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stocks remained positive on Wednesday, but saw gains the lesser by noon ET, following a more than 1% selloff on Tuesday, as oil prices traded in a wide range following inventories data.
The Dow Jones Industrials regained 54.75 points, to 18,121.50, following a dive Tuesday of nearly 260 points, with Apple leading advancers and American Express the top decliner.
The S&P 500 rebounded 7.61 points to 2,134.63, with information technology leading eight sectors higher and energy and materials as the only decliners.
The NASDAQ Composite recouped 37.07 points to 5,192.32, as Apple climbed 3.3%.
Data released Wednesday included import prices for August, which fell 0.2%. Economists had forecast import prices slipping 0.1% in August. In the 12 months through August, import prices fell 2.2%, the smallest decrease since October 2014, after declining 3.7% in July.
Import prices have been reined in by a strong dollar and cheap oil. That, together with sluggish wage growth, has left inflation persistently running below the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
Prices for the 10-year Treasury gained, lowering yields to 1.69% from Tuesday’s 1.72%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions
Oil prices dropped 96 cents at $43.94 U.S. a barrel
Gold prices progressed $3.30 at $1,327.00 U.S. an ounce.
