Canadian stocks bounce back after U.S. Fed's unlikely rate hikes

After suffering its biggest single-day drop in six months on Friday, Canada's main stock market bounced back into positive territory after the U.S. Federal Reserve cautioned against any interest rate hikes.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index opened the week with a gain of 57.14 points, or 0.39 percent, to close at 14,597.14 points. Six of the TSX index's ten sub-sectors saw gains on the day.

U.S. Federal Reserve board member Lael Brainard surprised the market during her afternoon speech, suggesting an interest rate hike was not likely during the Fed's meeting next week to determine if a rate change is warranted.

Oil prices gained on Monday, with U.S. light sweet crude for October delivery rising 0.35 U.S. dollars to 46.06 dollars a barrel in New York. Brent crude for October delivery advanced 0.31 dollars to close at 48.32 dollars a barrel in London.

The trading day began with the announcement of a merger between agriculture giants Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc and Agrium Inc. for 36 billion U.S. dollars. The announcement boosted the company stocks before closing the day down, with Potash down 1.40 percent at 21.83 Canadian dollars.

The morning also saw OpenText, a software company based out of Waterloo announce an agreement to purchase Dell-EMC's enterprise content division for 1.62 billion U.S. dollars. OpenText's shares soared up 9.03 percent to close at 85.01 Canadian dollars.

Gold companies were heavily traded during the day, with Vancouver-based B2Gold Corp. advancing 5.98 percent to 3.72 Canadian dollars per share. Meanwhile, Toronto-based IAMGOLD Corporation saw stocks spike 12.52 percent to finish the day at 5.75 Canadian dollars.

The Canadian dollar retreated to 0.7669 U.S. dollars, compared with Friday's closing rate of 0.7671 U.S. dollars. Endi