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Roundup: Canadian stock market rises sharply amid rising oil, Fed minutes

Xinhua, October 9, 2015 Adjust font size:

Canada's main stock market in Toronto rose for a fifth straight day with a triple-digit rally on Thursday, stimulated by the rising oil prices and the latest minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index increased 110.31 points, or 0.8 percent, to 13,978.66 points on the closing bell.

Most of the major sectors were in the rising streak with energy leading the increase by 3.35 percent. Shares of the oil and gas companies rallied over the rising oil prices, with the West Texas Intermediate for November delivery up 1.62 U.S. dollars to settle at 49.43 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Thursday.

Suncor Energy Inc. jumped 4.82 percent to 37.16 Canadian dollars (about 28.55 U.S. dollars) while Encana Corp. spiked 6.52 percent to 11.76 Canadian dollars per share.

The TSX index was also gaining momentum from the latest minutes released by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Open Market Committee on Thursday.

According to an observation economics report issued by TD Bank on Thursday, without further clarity from the Fed about the changes of the U.S. central bank's benchmark interest rate, "financial markets are unlikely to change their myopic lens. This may serve to reinforce the expectation that the Fed is following market expectations, rather than leading."

In a direct response, financials, the most weighed sector in TSX, edged up 0.55 percent, with the insurance company Manulife Financial Corp. up 0.89 percent to 21.62 Canadian dollars apiece.

Meanwhile, the mining sector climbed 1.05 percent as the base metals giant Teck Resources Ltd. rallied 7.2 percent to 9.53 Canadian dollars, following a 14.27-percent surge on Wednesday.

By contrast, heath care and info tech were moving downwards by 1.89 percent and 0.32 percent respectively.

On the domestic economic front, Statistics Canada reported on Thursday that the New Housing Price Index rose 0.3 percent in August, largely a result of higher new home prices in Ontario.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar on Thursday strengthened to 0.7682 U.S. dollar, compared with 0.7654 U.S. dollar on Wednesday. Enditem