Canadian Market Down Marginally In Cautious Trade

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market remains quite subdued Tuesday afternoon with investors largely refraining from making significant moves while continuing to assess the likely path the Federal Reserve will take with regard to interest rate hikes.

Following hawkish comments from a couple of Fed officials, the Canadian market pared most of its intraday gains on Monday and ended the session just modestly up.

Since trading started this morning, the market remains somewhat sluggish with investors looking ahead to the inflation data from the U.S., and not showing any keen interest in picking up stocks.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index is down 22.70 points or 0.11% at 19,834.37.

Energy stocks are notably lower. Technology stocks are also mostly down due to lack of support. Healthcare stocks are up with notable gains. A few stocks from the real estate sector are also up, while shares from the rest of the sectors are turning in a mixed performance.

Richeliue Hardware (RCH.TO), Nutrien (NTR.TO), West Fraser Timber (WFG.TO) and Boralex (BLX.TO) are down 2 to 4%.

Telus International (TIXT.TO) is surging more than 4%. Sprott Inc (SII.TO), Stantec (STN.TO), Precision Drilling Corporation (PD.TO), FirstService Corporation (FSV.TO), Rogers Communications Inc (RCI.A.TO) and Royal Bank of Canada (RY.TO) are up 1 to 2.7%.