The Canadian market rose to a new record high on Thursday as investors cheered the Federal Reserves decision to cut interest rates by 50 basis points. Higher crude oil and gold prices triggered strong buying in energy and materials stocks, contributing to markets upmove. Technology stocks turned in a fine performance.
The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index hit a new record high of 23,909.53, and ended with a gain of 273.67 points or 1.16% at 23,866.27, a fresh record closing high.
The Capped Information Technology index climbed nearly 3%. Dye & Durham (DND.TO), Celestica Inc (CLS.TO), Tecsys Inc (TCS.TO), Kinaxis Inc (KXS.TO), Lightspeed Commerce (LSPD.TO), Shopify Inc (SHOP.TO), Docebo Inc (DCBO.TO), Bitfarms (BITF.TO), Constellation Software (CSU.TO), Open Text Corp (OTEX.TO) and Descartes Systems Group (DSG.TO) gained 2.4 to 6%.
Energy stocks Cenovus Energy (CVE.TO), Advantage Oil & Gas (AAV.TO), Ces Energy Solutions (CEU.TO), International Petroleum Corp (IPCO.TO), Precision Drilling Corp (PD.TO), Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ.TO), Imperial Oil (IMO.TO) and MEG Energy Corp (MEG.TO) gained 2.3 to 3.2%.
Among materials shares, Ivanhoe Mines (IVN.TO) climbed more than 6.5%. Lundin Mining Corp (LUN.TO), Ero Copper (ERO.TO), Capstone Mining (CS.TO), Equinox Gold (EQX.TO), Hudbay Minerals (HBM.TO) and Teck Resources (TECK.B.TO) gained 3.5 to 6%.
Financials shares EQB Inc (EQB.TO), goeasy (GSY.TO), Laurentian Bank (LB.TO), Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD.TO), Onex Corp (ONEX.TO), Manulife Financial (MFC.TO) and Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO) ended higher by 1.7 to 3%.
Consumer discretionary stocks Mty Food Group (MTY.TO), Magna International (MG.TO), Restaurant Brands International (QSR.TO) and Spin Master Corp (TOY.TO) posted strong gains.