Energy Stocks Lift Toronto Index Two-week Low

At 9:43 a.m. ET (14:43 GMT), the Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index was up 65.38 points, or 0.31%, at 21,105.04. It hit its lowest level since Dec. 21 on Wednesday.

The energy sector climbed 3.5% as oil prices rose sharply on escalating unrest in OPEC+ oil producer Kazakhstan and supply outages in Libya. [O/R]

“There is a fairly good sector rotation back to banks and energy stocks, and oil up 2% this morning is going to be a nice relief for the energy sector,” said Gregory Taylor, portfolio manager at Purpose Investments.

The materials sector, which includes precious and base metals miners and fertilizer companies, lost 1.6% as gold futures fell 2.1% to $1,787.1 an ounce. [GOL/]

Bullion prices were under pressure after minutes of the Fed’s December meeting signaled quicker increases to interest rates, boosting the dollar and Treasury yields.

“Yesterday was a fairly big-sell off (on Wall Street) and really caught a lot of people off guard, but it also could just be profit-taking in the tech stocks,” said Taylor.

On the economic front, Canada posted a trade surplus of C$3.13 billion ($2.45 billion) in November, the largest since September 2008, with imports and exports both hitting record highs, Statistics Canada said.

HIGHLIGHTS

The TSX posted five new 52-week highs and seven new lows.

Across all Canadian issues there were 29 new 52-week highs and 35 new lows, with total volume of 41.57 million shares.

Original source material for this article taken from here