By Fergal Smith
(Reuters) -Canada’s main stock index rose on Wednesday, with the materials group leading a broad-based advance as gains for U.S. technology shares fed recent investor exuberence.
The S&P/TSX composite index .GSPTSE ended up 68.75 points, or 0.3%, at 26,972.32, moving closer to Friday’s record closing high.
“It’s still a momentum driven market,” said Michael Dehal, a senior portfolio manager at Dehal Investment Partners at Raymond James.
“Strength in the (U.S.) tech sector is spilling over to most other sectors, including the TSX.”
Wall Street climbed after artificial intelligence-linked chipmaker Nvidia briefly reached a $4 trillion valuation.
The materials sector, which includes fertilizer companies and metal mining shares, rose 0.8% as the price of gold clawed back some of the previous day’s decline.
Gains for the sector were kept in check by declines for copper producers, including a 9.4% drop for the shares of Ero Copper Corp.
On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would impose a 50% tariff on imported copper.
Real estate added 0.5%, with H&R Real Estate Investment Trust shares up 4.2% after the Globe and Mail reported that asset manager Blackstone and U.S.
equity funds were in talks to buy the company’s assets.
Canadian lender EQB said former finance head Chadwick Westlake will return as its CEO, just months after he left to join software firm OpenText OTEX.TO.
OpenText shares ended down 4.3%.
Still, technology added 0.4% as did industrials.
Just two of the 10 major sectors ended lower, including energy. Energy was down 0.1%, while the price of oil settled 0.1% higher at $68.38 a barrel.
(Reporting by Fergal Smith in Toronto and Twesha Dikshit and Sukriti Gupta in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas and Diane Craft)
