Canada’s main stock index advanced on Wednesday, led primarily by gains from oil and gas producers as the price of crude edged back closer to the US$50 mark after breaching US$50 on Monday for the first time in about two months.
“We’re seeing short-term optimism in terms of oil prices, which is refreshing to see given that the overlying theme this year has been weakness in oil prices after the rebound we saw in 2016,” said Kash Pashootan, a senior vice president and portfolio manager at First Avenue Advisory, a Raymond James Ltd. company in Toronto.
Still, Pashootan said he doesn’t feel the supply and demand fundamentals have changed enough where prices would rise to US$55 to US$60 a barrel, at least not any time soon.
“We don’t feel that from a foundational point of view that the story with oil has changed.”
South of the border, stocks were mostly lower. However, a big gain for Apple Inc. helped send the Dow Jones industrial average above 22,000 for the first time, advancing 52.32 points to settle at 22,016.24. The tech giant’s stock climbed US$7.17, or 4.8 %, to US$157.22.
The S&P 500 composite index nudged up 1.22 points to 2,477.57 while the Nasdaq composite index declined 0.29 of a point to 6,362.65.
The Canadian dollar was trading at an average price of US79.62¢, down 0.29 of a cent.
Elsewhere in commodities, the September natural gas contract gave back a cent at US$2.81 per mmBTU, December gold was down US$1 to US$1,278.40 an ounce and September copper was unchanged at US$2.88 a pound.