Gold Powers Market Higher

(MENAFN- Baystreet)
Equities in Canada's largest centre came off their highs of the day on Tuesday, but still flourished, with gold stocks leading gains, as investors awaited the highly anticipated central bank decisions from the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada.
The TSX prospered 74.4 points to close Tuesday at 31,244.37.
The Canadian dollar crept lower 0.01 at 72.20 cents U.S.
The index has jumped about 26% so far in 2025, on pace to outperform the major U.S. indexes, fueled by strong rallies in commodity and financial shares, with support from an easing interest rate environment.
Perpetua Resources added $1.81, or 5.2%, to $36.83, while Orla Mining gained 42 cents or 2.5% to $17.05.
Utility stocks gained, boosted by TransAlta advancing 69 cents, or 3.5%, to $20.25, after the power producer signed a long-term tolling agreement with Puget Sound Energy.
In other corporate news, defense company MDA Space advanced 98 cents, or 4%, to $25.39 after entering a strategic partnership agreement with the Canadian government and Telesat.
Brookfield Corporation announced the pricing of $1 billion of medium-term notes, while Colliers International announced it had acquired 100% ownership of its business in India.
Brookfield shares gained 33 cents to $64.65.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchanged leaped 15.27 points, or 1.7%, to 940.28
The 12 TSX subgroups were evenly split, the gainers led by gold, stronger 3%, while materials vaulted 1.8%, and health-care, haler 1.5%.
The half-dozen laggards were weighed most by energy, down 1.2%, while telecoms and consumer discretionary stocks each faded 0.5%.
ON WALLSTREET
The S&P 500 was relatively unchanged on Tuesday as Wall Street looked ahead to this week's interest rate decision from the Federal Reserve.
The Dow Jones Industrials stumbled 178.51 points to close Tuesday at 47,560.81, dragged down by a decline in JPMorgan shares on higher-than-expected 2026 expense projections.
The much-broader index slid 5.99 points to 6,840.52.
The NASDAQ gained 30.58 points to 23,576.49.
Shares of Broadcom rose almost 3%, while Nvidia and Microsoft each added about 2%, on the back of a report from The Information that Microsoft is considering designing custom chips with Broadcom.
In the broader market, CVS was among the winners of the trading day, rising 4% after the drugstore chain issued a better-than-expected profit outlook for next year.
Traders are waiting for the Fed's highly awaited interest rate decision on Wednesday, which will be the last of the year.
Markets are betting that the central bank will lower its key overnight lending rate by another quarter percentage point as it did at its meetings in September and October.
Fed funds futures suggest an 89% chance of a decrease, up from under 67% about a month ago.
Prices for the 10-year Treasury were down slightly, raising yields to 4.18% from Monday's 4.17%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices slumped 52 cents to $58.36.
Gold prices recovered $24.30 to $4,242.

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