Canada's main stock index rose on Thursday, with tech shares offsetting declines in gold and mining stocks, a day after the Bank of Canada and the U.S. Federal Reserve cut rates by a quarter-point and left the door open for further reduction.
The TSX Composite Index gained 83.44 points to end Thursday morning at 29,405.10.
The Canadian dollar dropped 0.14 cents to 72.47 cents U.S.
Endeavour Silver Corp dropped 4.5%, while Seabridge Gold, Orla Mining and G Mining were down between 2% and 3%.
Electronic equipment company Celestica added 1.1%, while heavyweights Shopify grabbed 2%, and Blackberry was up 3.3%.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange faded 1.31 points to 873.82.
Eight of the 12 subgroups were in plus territory, led by information technology up 1.2%, health-care, prospering 0.8%, and industrials, better by 0.6%.
The four laggards were weighed most by telecoms, gold and materials, each down 0.7%.
ON WALLSTREET
Stocks rose to record highs on Thursday as investors rotated back into technology stocks now that the Federal Reserve has lowered rates and signaled more cuts are on the way.
The Dow Jones Industrials surged 128.34 points to pause for lunch at 46,146.66
The S&P 500 index plowed forward 42.69 points to 6,643.04.
The tech-heavy NASDAQ resurged 260.05 points to 22,521.73
Intel shares rallied about 26% after Nvidia said it will invest $5 billion in the chipmaker to co-develop data center and PC products. Shares of Nvidia jumped more than 3%.
Shares of several other major tech companies, which tend to outperform in lower interest rate environments, also gained, with Palantir jumping 4%, Micron adding 5% and Google parent Alphabet and Tesla edging higher.
The moves follow a volatile day of trading Wednesday after the Fed, as anticipated, slashed its benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point.
During a news conference following the decision, Fed Chair Jerome Powell put a damper on investor hopes that the central bank would be on a lengthy rate-cutting path this year, as he called the latest cut “risk management.” In fact, policymakers are predicting two more reductions this year, but just one in 2026, while traders had priced in two to three more cuts next year.
Prices for 10-year Treasury lost ground Thursday, pushing yields up to 4.12% from Wednesday’s 4.07%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices fell 35 cents to $63.70 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices blundered $45.10 to $3,672.70 U.S. an ounce.
