Canada’s main stock index rallied hard on Friday to end the week higher and scoring a new intra-day high of 22,316.92 in the process. According to Statistics Canada, the country’s trade surplus grew to C$1.39 billion in February thanks to record exports of C$66.62 billion. Softer employment numbers lifted hopes of a June rate cut by the Bank of Canada. The unemployment rate rose 0.3 percentage points to 6.1 per cent in March.
After a week of treading through the red, U.S. markets clocked in a solid rebound thanks to a stronger-than-expected jobs report that calculated growth of 303,000 new jobs in March, while the unemployment rate came in at 3.8 per cent.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.57 cents compared with 73.78 cents U.S. on Thursday.
U.S. crude futures traded $0.08 higher at $86.67 a barrel, and the Brent contract added $0.24 to $90.89 a barrel.
The price of gold was up US$35.00 to US$2,323.89.
In world markets, the Nikkei was down 781.06 points to 38,992.08, the Hang Seng was down 1.18 point to 16,723.92, the FTSE was down 64.73 points to 7,911.16, and the DAX was down 228.09 points to 18,175.04.
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