TSX Ends Higher For 5th Straight Day

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market ended higher on Wednesday as soft U.S. consumer price inflation data reinforced expectations of a rate cut by the Federal Reserve next month.

Healthcare, technology, financials, energy and industrials shares were among the prominent gainers. Consumer staples stocks too found fairly good support.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index, which briefly slipped into negative territory in early trades, ended the day with a gain of 141.83 points or 0.63% at 22,760.01.

TerraVest Industries (TVK.TO) shares soared more than 15%. Pollard Banknote (PBL.TO) climbed 9.6%.

Cargojet (CJT.TO), Shopify Inc (SHOP.TO), Canadian Tire Corporation (CTC.TO), Thomson Reuters Corporation (TRI.TO), Constellation Software (CSU.TO), RB Global (RBA.TO), Descartes Systems Group (DSG.TO), Loblaw Companies (L.TO) and WSP Global (WSP.TO) gained 1.3 to 2.5%.

CAE Inc (CAE.TO) rallied sharply after reporting stronger than expected first-quarter revenue.

AutoCanada (ACQ.TO) tanked 17.5%. The company reported a net loss of $33.1 million in the second quarter, including an $11.3 million impairment of non-financial assets in the current quarter and a write off of $13.2 million of deferred tax assets relating to U.S. Operations, as compared to net profit of $45.2 million in the prior year.

Franco-Nevada Corporation (FNV.TO) dropped about 6.2% after the company's quarterly earnings fell short of expectations. ATCO (ACO.Y.TO) ended down 4.1%.

West Fraser Timber (WFG.TO), goeasy (GSY.TO) and Cogeco Communications (CCA.TO) ended lower by 2.2%, 1.7% and 1.4%, respectively.

The Labor Department said its consumer price index rose by 0.2% in July after edging down by 0.1% in June. The modest increase by consumer prices matched expectations.

Core consumer prices, which exclude food and energy prices, also crept up by 0.2% in July after inching up by 0.1% in June. The uptick by core consumer prices was also in line with economist estimates.

Meanwhile, the report said the annual rate of consumer price growth slowed slightly to 2.9% in July from 3% in June. Economists had expected the pace of growth to remain unchanged.

The annual rate of core consumer price growth also slipped to 3.2% in July from 3.3% in June, in line with expectations.