Canadian Market Moderately Higher At Noon; Technology Stocks Rally

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market opened in green Thursday morning, and moved further up north subsequently thanks to strong buying in technology, materials, utilities and consumer staples sectors.

Optimism about interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve and a few other central banks in the second quarter contribute to the positive mood in the market.

Investors are also digesting the latest batch of U.S. and Canadian economic data, and the European Central Bank's decision to leave interest rates unchanged.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index, which climbed to 21,784.82, is up 129.57 points or 0.6% at 21,723.53 a few minutes before noon.

Technology stocks Descartes Systems Group (DSG.TO) and Coveo Solutions (CVO.TO) are up 5.2% and 4.5%, respectively. Constellation Software (CSU.TO) is gaining 3.5%, while Enghouse Systems (ENGH.TO), Kinaxis Inc (KXS.TO), CGI Group (GIB.A.TO), Docebo Inc (DCBO.TO), Converge Technology Solutions (CTS.TO) and Open Text Corp (OTEX.TO) are up 1 to 2.3%.

Capstone Mining Corp (CS.TO), up 7.8%, is the top gainer in the Materials Capped Index. Novagold (NG.TO), Seabridge Gold (SEA.TO), Teck Resources (TECK.B.TO), Hudbay Minerals (HBM.TO), Stelco Holdings (STLC.TO), Labrdor Iron Ore (LIF.TO) and Lundin Mining (LUN.TO) are gaining 2.5 to 4.5%.

In the utilities section, Brookfield Infra Partners (BIP.UN.TO), Innergex Renewable Energy (INE.TO) and Northland Power (NPI.TO) are up 2.3 to 2.7%. Boralex (BLX.TO), Brookfield Renewable Partners (BEP.UN.TO) and Hydro One (H.TO) are advancing 1 to 1.7%.

Consumer staples stocks Jamieson Wellness (JWEL.TO), Loblaw (L.TO), Alimentation Couche-Tard (ATD.TO) and George Weston (WN.TO) are up 1.2 to 1.7%.

On Canadian economic front, the nation recorded a trade surplus of C$500 million in January. Exports dropped to C$62.29 billion, while imports decreased to C$61.79 million in the month.

Data from Statistics Canada showed building permits in Canada increased to 13.5% MoM in January from -11.5% in December.