Gains in energy stocks helped Canada's main stock index rebound on Thursday from a more than two-week low hit in the previous session, but hawkish signals from the US Federal Reserve kept sentiment in check.
At 9:43 a.m. ET, the Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index was up 65.38 points, or 0.31%, at 21,105.04. It hit its lowest level since Dec. 21 on Wednesday.
The energy sector climbed 3.5% as oil prices rose sharply on escalating unrest in OPEC+ oil producer Kazakhstan and supply outages in Libya.
"There is a fairly good sector rotation back to banks and energy stocks, and oil up 2% this morning is going to be a nice relief for the energy sector," said Gregory Taylor, portfolio manager at Purpose Investments.
The materials sector, which includes precious and base metals miners and fertilizer companies, lost 1.6% as gold futures fell 2.1% to $1,787.1 an ounce.
Toronto index edges up as energy stocks boost
Bullion prices were under pressure after minutes of the Fed's December meeting signaled quicker increases to interest rates, boosting the dollar and Treasury yields.
"Yesterday was a fairly big-sell off (on Wall Street) and really caught a lot of people off guard, but it also could just be profit-taking in the tech stocks," said Taylor.
On the economic front, Canada posted a trade surplus of C$3.13 billion ($2.45 billion) in November, the largest since September 2008, with imports and exports both hitting record highs, Statistics Canada said.
Highlights
The TSX posted five new 52-week highs and seven new lows.
Across all Canadian issues there were 29 new 52-week highs and 35 new lows, with total volume of 41.57 million shares.
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