Roundup: Canadian stock market gains momentum on Fed's minutes

Canada's main stock market ticked up Wednesday as gloomy trading sentiment amid oil plunge was relieved slightly by the minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve's December meeting.

Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index edged up 38.23 points, or 0.27 percent, to 14,285.00 points after a two-day dive this week, as the non-resource shares posted a modest recovery.

The index gained momentum on Wednesday after the minutes from the Fed's December meeting showed that the central bank will not raise rates sooner than generally expected, although the Fed is on course to raise interest rates this year.

Meanwhile, the Fed also expected the drop in oil prices to be positive as the risks will be counteracted by U.S. domestic strength, which boosted Canadian equities market sentiment.

As a direct response, financials, the most weighed sector in TSX, bounced up 0.23 percent from losses in the past five consecutive trading days. The heavyweight Royal Bank of Canada inched up 0.04 percent to 78.35 Canadian dollars (about 66.28 U.S. dollars), and Manulife Financial Corp. added 0.52 percent to 21.26 Canadian dollars per share.

The telecom sector logged the biggest increase by 1.26 percent when the leading companies BCE Inc. advanced 1.7 percent to 54.4 Canadian dollars, while Telus Corp. moved up 1.02 percent to 41.68 Canadian dollars.

Health Care, another non-resource sector, increased 0.82 percent as the drug maker Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. gained 1.57 percent to 171.64 Canadian dollars.

However, the resource shares were still in negative territory as concerns about the crude market weighed on investors' portfolio choices. The energy sector as well as the metals and mining sector lost 0.56 percent and 0.98 percent respectively.

On the economic front, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday that Canada's international trade deficit on merchandise widened to 644 million Canadian dollars in November from 327 million Canadian dollars in October, mainly due to a decline in exports of energy products as well as metal and non-metallic mineral products.

Analysts believed that the oil plunge will hurt the growth of Canada's economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2014.

As for the currency, the Canadian dollar eked out a slight gain on Wednesday to 0.8460 U.S. dollar, compared with 0.8455 U.S. dollar of the previous session. Endite