Spot gold XAU= firmed 0.3 percent as markets shifted focus from hawkish comments by a Federal Reserve official at the weekend to a meeting of global central bankers this week, awaiting further guidance on US interest rates.
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Belisle said if the markets interpreted Yellen’s comments as more hawkish, that benefited the USA dollar.
The loonie also slipped, down 0.24 of a cent to 77.22 cents U.S.
In Toronto, the S&P/TSX composite index gained 60.73 points at 14,748.19, helped by rising shares in Alimentation Couche-Tard and Valeant Pharmaceuticals.
Gold futures in NY rose 0.8 percent after briefly drifting to a loss.
Perhaps helping the turn of sentiment were comments on CNBC from Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer suggesting the central bank could raise rates twice before year’s end, instead of once in December as many investors had been expecting. “What she’s doing is quelling future uncertainty”.
Alimentation Couche-Tard’s more commonly traded B shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange hit a record high of $67.99 on Monday before settling at $66.78, up almost 7.5 per cent. Parkland Fuel shares closed up by almost 16 per cent to $29.27.
CIBC, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Montreal all topped analysts’ expectations this week, driving a 1.5 percent weekly advance for financial service stocks that’s the most in six weeks. Seven of the index’s 10 main groups were lower.
Gains for the materials group were led by a 1.4 percent advance in shares of Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc.
That’s boosted the Canadian equity benchmark to a more than 12 per cent jump in 2016, rebounding from a slump past year that was the worst for the S&P/TSX since the 2008 financial crisis.
Oil prices have been hovering around the US$50 mark for some time – a far cry from the US$100 a barrel prices seen in 2014.
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Torstar Corp., owner of the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest circulation newspaper, jumped 6.6 percent, the biggest increase in a month. Its shares closed up $3.59 to $40.55.
