TSX Rises 1.3%, Posts Record Closing High

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market climbed to a record high on Thursday, lifted by strong gains in technology and materials sectors. While encouraging earnings from a few big name U.S. tech companies triggered heavy buying in the tech space, firm metal prices pushed up materials shares.

Healthcare, utilities, real estate and industrials stocks were the other major gainers.

Investors digested U.S. and European economic data, and the European Central Bank's monetary policy announcement.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index ended with a solid gain of 334.95 points or 1.31% at 25,808.25. The index scaled a fresh record high of 25,875.61 in the session.

The Information Technology Capped index climbed 3.45%. Celestica Inc (CLS.TO) soared nearly 14.5%. Celestica reported solid Q4 earnings and even raised its 2025 outlook due to demand in the data center and AI segments.

Sangoma Technologies (STC.TO) rallied 5.5%. CGI Group (GIB.A.TO), Bitfarms (BITF.TO), Open Text Corp (OTEX.TO), Shopify Inc (SHOP.TO), Coveo Solutions (CVO.TO) and Lightspeed Commerce (LSPD.TO) gained 2 to 4.1%.

The Materials Capped Index gained 3.44%. Fortuna Silver Mines (FVI.TO) soared 9.25%, First Majestic Silver Corp (AG.TO), Silvercrest Metals (SIL.TO), Pan American Silver Corp (PASS.TO) and MAG Silver Corp (MAG.TO) gained 7 to 8.1%.

First Quantum Minerals (FM.TO), Seabridge Gold (SEA.TO), Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM.TO), Ssr Mining (SSRM.TO), Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM.TO), Franco-Nevada Corp (FNV.TO), Methanex Corp (MX.TO) and Barrick Gold Corp (ABX.TO) also closed sharply higher.

Healthcare stock Tilray Inc (TLRY.TO) climbed 7.3%. Transalta Corp (TA.TO), up 6.2%, was the top gainer in the real estate sector. Industrials stocks Waste Connections (WCN.TO) and Finning International (FTT.TO) closed up 3.4% and 2.3%, respectively.

HR&R Real Estate (HR.UN.TO), Granite Real Estate (GRT.UN.TO), Colliers International (CIGI.TO) and Northwest Healthcare Prop (NWH.UN.TO) were among the major gainers in the real estate sector.

Data from Statistics Canada said average weekly earnings of non-farm payroll employees in Canada rose by 5% year-on-year to $1,285.91 in November 2024, the most in five months, following an upwardly revised 4.2% growth in October.

A report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said the CFIB business barometer long-term index in Canada, which tracks 12-month business outlooks, fell to 54.6 in January 2025, from a score of 56.4 recorded in December 2024.