Canadian Market Rises On Rate Cut Bets

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market is up firmly in positive territory Friday afternoon, thanks to strong gains in the technology sector. A few stocks from financial and communications sectors are also up with notable gains.

The mood remains positive amid rising prospects of monetary easing by the Federal Reserve after data showed U.S. consumer price inflation rose slightly less than expected in the month of September. The Bank of Canada, which is scheduled to announce its rate decision next week, is also expected to cut interest rates.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index was up 173.45 points or 0.57% at 30,359.73 a little while ago.

Data from the Labor Department showed the U.S. consumer price index rose by 0.3% in September after climbing by 0.4% in August. Economists had expected consumer prices to rise by another 0.4%.

The report also said the annual rate of growth by consumer prices ticked up to 3% in September from 2.9% in August, although that was slower than the 3.1% jump expected by economists.

In Canadian economic news, the house price index in Canada decreased by 0.2% in September from -0.3% in August of, according to data released by Statistics Canada.

The Information Technology Capped Index is up 3%. Bitfarms is up nearly 10%. Dye & Durham, Coveo Solutions and Celestica Inc are up 5.7 to 6.3%.

Shopify, BlackBerry, Lightspeed Commerce, Sylogist, Enghouse Systems, Kinaxis and Computer Modelling Group are also up with impressive gains.

Among financials stocks, Goeasy, Brookfield Corporation, TMX Group, Brookfield Asset Management, Igm Financial, Manulife Financial, IA Financial Corp and Onex Corp are gaining 1.5 to 2.7%.