Toronto's main stock index rose to a two-week high on Monday as higher commodity prices lifted materials and energy stocks, while investors awaited a slew of economic data coming in this week from Canada and the United States.
The TSX zoomed 173.3 points to reach noon EDT Monday at 20,009.05.
The Canadian dollar added 0.04 cents to 73.57 cents U.S.
Major Canadian Banks, including Bank of Montreal, Bank of Nova Scotia and National Bank of Canada, are also scheduled to report their quarterly earnings this week.
Shares in BMO climbed $1.38, or 1.2%, to $113.54. Scotiabank shares strengthened 55 cents to $62.67. National shares gained 76 cents to $98.92.
Among individual stocks, BlackBerry fell 22 cents, or 3%, to $6.86, a day after rallying more than 17%.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange eked up 1.83 points to 583.06.
All but two of the 12 TSX subgroups prospered midday, with materials surging 1.7%, and gold soaring 1.5%, and energy gushing 1.4%.
The two laggards were consumer staples, down 0.2%, and health-care, off 0.1%.
ON WALLSTREET
Stocks rose Monday to kick off the final trading week of August, with Wall Street looking to regain ground after a month of losses.
The Dow Jones Industrials came off its highs of the day, but were still higher 191.74 points to 34,538.64 Monday.
The S&P 500 index hiked 15.36 points to 4,421.07.
The NASDAQ index gained 52.29 points to 13,642.94.
Meta, Tesla and Apple traded slightly higher, while Nvidia lost nearly 1%.
Outside of tech, Shares of 3M popped 4.3% after a Bloomberg News report that the company was ready to settle lawsuits alleging some earplugs were faulty. Energy, industrial and real estate were the best-performing S&P 500 sectors.
Stocks are coming off a winning session following fresh remarks from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. On Friday, Powell pointed to some signs of continued economic growth and strong consumer spending, but indicated that the central bank would “proceed carefully” with additional hikes.
As of Monday morning, traders were pricing in a nearly 20% chance that the Fed will hike rates again at its upcoming September meeting, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
Prices for the 10-year Treasury gained a bit, lowering yields to 4.22% from Friday’s 4.23%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices moved higher 41 cents to $80.24 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices gained $9.70 to $1,949.60 U.S. an ounce.
