Canada’s main stock index jumped to a more than one-month high on Thursday as energy and mining shares gained on firmer commodity prices, although uncertainty around the Russia-Ukraine crisis capped gains.
At 10:05 a.m. ET, the Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index was up 164.3 points, or 0.77%, at 21,633.13, with energy stocks and miners leading the gains.
The energy sector climbed 2.4% after the International Energy Agency said three million barrels a day of Russian oil and products could be shut in from next month.
“Some of that optimism that we had about a ceasefire in Russia and Ukraine seems to be fading away and with that we’ve got oil prices recovering some of the losses it had in the last few days,” said Gregory Taylor, portfolio manager at Purpose Investments.
The materials sector, which includes precious and base metals miners and fertilizer companies, added 2.2% as gold futures rose 1.7% to $1,941 an ounce.
Energy and materials together account for nearly 30% of the Toronto market.
Investors remained cautious on the developments around Russia-Ukraine peace talks after the Kremlin said on Thursday that the sides were yet to reach a deal.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said a report that Ukraine and Russia had made significant progress on a tentative peace plan was not fully right.
“It seems the statement today has knocked the hopes there had been that real progress was being made,” said Stuart Cole, head macro economist at Equiti Capital.
The TSX has outperformed many global benchmarks this year, helped by the strong weightage of commodity-linked shares that have tracked a sharp spike in commodities following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
On the economic front, domestic home price gains accelerated again in February from January, climbing 1.5% on the month as prices rose in nine of the 11 major markets, data showed.
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