TSX Hits New High, Ends On Strong Note

(RTTNews) - The Canadian stock market ended on a strong note on Thursday, lifted by gains in materials, technology and real estate shares. Consumer stocks firmed up as well, contributing further to market's upside.

Despite spikes in coronavirus cases in several parts of the world and concerns about a slowdown in vaccination rollout, the mood in the market was fairly bullish thanks to continued optimism about global economic recovery amid some upbeat data. Firm commodity prices helped as well.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index ended with a gain of 150.26 points or 0.78% at 19,321.92, slightly off a fresh intraday high of 19,337.17.

The Capped Materials Index gained 3.11%. Fortuna Silver Mines (FVI.TO), Hudbay Minerals (HBM.TO), B2Gold Corp (BTO.TO), Silvercrest Metals (SIL.TO), Lundin Mining (LUN.TO), Alamos Gold (AGI.TO), First Quantum Minerals (FM.TO) and Osisko Mining (OSK.TO) gained 5 to 7%.

Among information technology stocks, Shopify Inc (SHOP.TO) climbed nearly 2.5%, Kinaxis Inc (KXS.TO) gained 1.65% and CGI Group (GIB.A.TO) advanced 1.55%, while Photon Control (PHO.TO), Enghouse Systems (ENGH.TO) and Open Text Corp (OTEX.TO) gained 1 to 1.1%.

Real estate stocks Tricon Capital Group (TCN.TO), Interrent Real Estate Investment (IIP.UN.TO), Summit Industrial Income (SMU.UN.TO), Real Matters (REAL.TO), CDN Apartment (CAR.UN.TO) and H&R Real Estate (HR.UN.TO) gained 1.5 to 2.7%.

Healthcare stocks were weak, while energy, financial and industrials shares turned in a mixed performance.

On the economic front, data released by Automatic Data Processing, Inc. showed private businesses in Canada created 634,800 jobs in March, after a revised 271,700 increase in February. The increase in March was the strongest in private employment since at least 2017.

A report from the Canadian Real Estate Association said home sales recorded over Canadian MLS Systems climbed 5.2% between February and March, a new all-time record.

According to data released by Statistics Canada, producer prices in Canada increased 9.4% in March over the same month in the previous year.

Manufacturing sales in Canada decreased 1.6% in February from 3.1% in January, another data from Statistics Canada showed.