TSX Ends Modestly Higher

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market eased a bit after opening on a somewhat sluggish note Monday morning, but came off lows quickly and spent the rest of the session in positive territory, led by gains in energy stocks.

With the U.S. market closed for the extended July 4th weekend, trading activity was quite subdued. Optimism about strong economic rebound outweighed concerns about the spread of the delta variant of the coronavirus.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index ended up by 55.35 points or 0.27% at 20,281.46, slightly off the session's high of 20,291.31.

Energy stocks gained after crude oil prices rose sharply as OPEC+ abandoned output talks without a deal. The Capped Energy Index climbed 2.16%. Whitecap Resources (WCP.TO) gained 3.65%. Cenovus Energy (CVE.TO), Suncor Energy (SU.TO), Enerplus Corp (ERF.TO), MEG Energy (MEG.TO), Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ.TO) and Crescent Point Energy (CPG.TO) gained 2 to 3.1%.

Information technology stocks Tecsys Inc (TCS.TO) and BlackBerry (BB.TO) gained 2.5% and 1.8%, respectively. Constellation Software (CSU.TO), Lightspeed Pos (LSPD.TO) and Alithya Group (ALYA.TO) ended higher by 1.1 to 1.3%.

Among the stocks in the materials index, Cascades Inc (CAS.TO) rallied 6.35%. Teck Resources (TECK.B.TO) ended nearly 2% up and First Quantum Minerals (FM.TO) gained 1.65%. Ssr Mining (SSRM.TO), New Gold (NGD.TO) and Hudbay Minerals (HBM.TO) also ended notably higher.

Real estate stocks Cominar R E (CUF.UN.TO), Riocan Real Estate (REI.UN.TO), First Capital (FCR.UN.TO) and Interrent Real Estate Investment (IIP.UN.TO) gained 1 to 1.4%.

The Business Outlook Survey indicator in Canada rose to 4.17 in the second quarter of 2021 from an upwardly revised 2.95 in the previous period, the Bank of Canada said today.