Canada's main stock index touched a six-year high on Wednesday, as higher commodity prices drove up shares of energy and mining companies as investors waited for a U.S. Federal Reserve statement on its monetary policy direction.
The S&P/TSX composite index grew 53.36 points to close Wednesday at 15,109.25.
The Canadian dollar climbed 0.16 cents at 92.24 cents U.S.
The index has been rising sharply over the past two and a half weeks, and is not far from its record high of 15,154.77, set in June 2008.
In the index's energy group, Talisman Energy rose six cents, or 0.5%, to $11.57, while Canadian Natural Resources gained 0.9% to $47.76.
Copper prices pushed close to their highest level in two weeks, while gold was steady, helping the mining-laden materials sector to rise. Iamgold climbed 16 cents, or 3.8%, to $4.38, while base metals miner HudBay Minerals rose 28 cents, or 2.9% to $10.00.
Among other gold stocks, Allied Nevada vaulted 30 cents, or 8%, to $4.03, while Barrick Gold took on 33 cents, or 1.8%, to $18.87.
Among individual stocks, BlackBerry jumped 26 cents, or 3%, to $9.00, after it agreed to a licensing deal with Amazon.com Inc that will let the smartphone maker offer some 240,000 Android applications from Amazon's app store on its lineup of BlackBerry 10 devices this fall.
On the economic front, Statistics Canada told us that wholesale trade rose 1.2% to $51.2 billion in April following a decline in March. Higher sales were recorded in all sub-sectors except for food, beverage and tobacco.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange gained 2.74 points to 1,008.92
All but two of the 14 Toronto subgroups were higher, gold leading the way, 2.4% better, while materials gained 1.9% and global base metals strengthened 1.4%.
The two laggards were consumer staples, down 0.4%, and health-care, less hale by 0.3%.
ON WALLSTREET
Stocks are continuing their record run and for today at least, you can thank the U.S. Federal Reserve for that.
The central bank said Wednesday that interest rates aren't expected to rise until 2015.
The Dow Jones Industrials vaulted 98.13 points to 16,906.62
The S&P 500 leaped 14.99 to 1,956.98 -- a new record -- and the NASDAQ composite improved 25.61 points to 4,362.84, its highest level in 14 years.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the Fire Phone, the tech giant's first smartphone, which includes a 3-D component, at an event near the company's Seattle headquarters Wednesday. The stock got a 2.7% boost.
Also related to Amazon, BlackBerry shares popped over 3% after the struggling smartphone maker announced that the Amazon Appstore will be available on its new operating system that's launching in the fall. The move significantly expands the number of apps available to Blackberry users.
BlackBerry is in the midst of trying to execute a turnaround, and lately, investors have been pleased. The stock is up 14% in the past month, though it is still down nearly 45% for the past year.
Adobe spiked over 8% after reporting better-than-expected quarterly results Tuesday evening. The company, which is behind the popular Photoshop software, said revenue in the period was driven by the acceleration of its cloud business.
FedEx has finally stopped blaming the weather. The company released strong earnings Wednesday and shares got a nice lift of over 6%.
Last quarter, FedEx claimed that its operating income would have been $125 million U.S. higher if not for the unusually harsh winter weather earlier this year.
ConAgra Foods shares took a nosedive of 7% after the company cut its profit outlook for the three months ending in May, citing challenges from some of its retail brands, including Chef Boyardee.
As expected, the Fed said Wednesday that it will cut its monthly bond purchases by another $10 billion U.S. per month and keep its key federal funds rate near zero.
The key question for investors is whether the Federal Reserve is likely to raise interest rates by the end of the year or wait until 2015. To that end, the Fed soothed worries when it released its "dot plot," the Fed's version of a straw poll of its board members views on interest rates.
The latest dot plot showed all Fed members except one (there's always one) believe interest rates will remain the same through the end of 2014.
In a press conference this afternoon, Fed Chair Janet Yellen maintained that interests rates would remain low even after the Fed completely winds down its stimulus, but she didn't nail down any more details, saying "there's no mechanical formula" for rate increases.
Prices for 10-year U.S. Treasuries improved, lowering yields to 2.61% from Tuesday’s 2.66%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions
Oil prices slipped 24 cents to $106.12 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices took on $2.60 at $1,274.60 U.S. an ounce.
Related Stories
