Canada’s main stock index rose on Thursday, lifted by rate-sensitive financial stocks, while investors remained cautious amid aggressive monetary policy tightening by major global central banks.
At 10:14 a.m. ET, the Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index was up 23.44 points, or 0.12%, at 19,264.88.
The financials sector gained 0.5%, while industrials rose 0.6%.
The Federal Reserve is “strongly committed” to controlling inflation but there remains hope it can be done without the “very high social costs” involved in prior inflation fights, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said.
“Everyone’s waiting for when the Fed is going to back off from some of their aggressive policies and Powell has made it clear that he’s not going to make that pivot anytime soon,” said Greg Taylor, portfolio manager at Purpose Investments.
“The bigger thing is when they start quantitative tightening.”
Meanwhile, the European Central Bank raised its benchmark lending rate by 75 basis points on Thursday, mirroring a similar increase by the Bank of Canada a day earlier.
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