TSX Rises 0.85%, Ends Near Record High

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market ended on a firm note on Wednesday, lifted by strong gains in materials and technology sectors. Optimism about the Bank of Canada easing its monetary policy sometime in the middle of this year helped underpin sentiment.

Investors also digested the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcement. The Fed left the target range for the federal funds rate at 5.25 to 5.5% as widely expected. While the accompanying statement said Fed officials still need "greater confidence" inflation is moving sustainably toward 2% before cutting rates, the projections still point to three rate cuts this year.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index ended with a gain of 185.13 points or 0.85% at 22,045.71, just short of a record closing high.

The Materials Capped Index climbed 2.38%. Lithium Americas Corp (LAC.TO) surged more than 7.5%. Fortuna Silver Mines (FVI.TO), Novagold (ND.TO), Silvercrest Metals (SIL.TO), Interfor Corp (IFP.TO), Canfor Corp (CFP.TO), New Gold (NDG.TO), First Majestic Silver Corp (FR.TO), Lundin Gold (LUG.TO), Torex Gold Resources (TXG.TO), Oceanagold Corp (OGC.TO), Seabridge Gold (SEA.TO), MAG Silver (MAG.TO) and K92 Mining Inc (KNT.TO) gained 5 to 7%.

The Information Technology Capped Index advanced nearly 2%. Hut 8 Corp (HUT.TO) soared more than 12%, and Bitfarms (BITF.TO) zoomed 10.5%. Alithya Group (ALYA.TO), BlackBerry (BB.TO), Tecsys Inc (TCS.TO), Shopify Inc (SHOP.TO), Enghouse Systems (ENGH.TO), Kinaxis Inc (KXS.TO) and Lightspeed Commerce (LSPD.TO) gained 3 to 5.4%.

Consumer discretionary stocks Aritzia Inc (ATZ.TO), Magna International (MG.TO), Brp Inc (DOO.TO), Linamar Corp (LNR.TO) and Canadian Tire Corp (CTC.A.TO) gained 1.8 to 4.2%.

Utilities shares Northland Power (NPI.TO) and Innergex Renewable Energy (INE.TO) climbed 2.4% and 2.1%, respectively.

Goeasy (GSY.TO), Brookfield Asset Management (BAM.TO), Sprott Inc (SII.TO), Brookfield Corporation (BN.TO), Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO), CDN Western Bank (CWB.TO) and Laurentian Bank (LB.TO) are among the prominent gainers in the financial section.

Real estate stocks Northwest Healthcare (NWH.UN.TO), Colliers International (CIGI.TO), Riocan Real Estate (REI.UN.TO) and Granite Real Estate Investment (GRT.UN.TO) moved up sharply.