A Record High for the Canadian Stock Market

Despite early losses, Canada’s main stock index recovered and continued to rise, while the U.S. markets fell from their record highs.

Composite index S&P/TSX rose 37.98 points to record high of 21,594.52 points at the close.

Investment strategist Colin Cieszynski of SIA Wealth Management says investors were mostly pausing to reevaluate on the situation. “We’ve just had a big run in markets in the last few months and everybody’s just kind of stopping to catch their breath and look around and see where we’re at,”

Despite a 2.7 percent rise in crude oil prices, the energy sector fell.

Shares in oil and gas companies fell 0.3 percent, but gains in oilfield services and equipment companies offset the losses.

Following the reopening of the U.S.-Canada land border, the price of oil went up.

At US$84.15 per barrel, December crude oil was up $2.22; December natural gas was down $44.8 cents per mmBTU at US$4.98.

“But that to me is more of a short-term thing. I think generally supporting the oil price has been that OPEC plus last week is continuing to manage supply.” said Cieszynski

After posting strong quarterly results, shares of fresh producer supplier Village Farms International Inc. rose 10.8%, boosting consumer staples by 1.3%.

Even though gold prices fell, the price of materials rose.

There was a $2.80 drop in the price of gold to $1,830.80 an ounce and a 2.6% drop in the price of copper to $4.37 for the month of December.

Producer prices in the United States were slightly better than expected on Tuesday, but they still remained above the national average.

Following the release of Chinese consumer prices, inflation data will be released on Wednesday.

“So we’ll have probably a better idea on where inflation’s at tomorrow, but so far it’s still stable at a very high level,” Cieszynski said.

Original source material for this article taken from here