Canadian Stocks End Roughly Flat Amid Crucial Trump-Zelenskyy Meeting

(RTTNews) - Canadian stocks ended little unchanged on Monday as investors focused their attention on US-Ukraine negotiations underway at the White House along with upcoming domestic inflation data to be released tomorrow.

After opening just a little below the previous week's close, the benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index fell in the early hours but rose to reach an intraday high of 27,921.39 by pre-noon.

From there, the index moved down throughout the day but managed to move up to close at 27,922.85, up by 17.36 points (or 0.06%).

US President Donald Trump is all out to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict dragging for three-plus years.

Stepping up his efforts, he met with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin last Friday in Alaska, although the meeting did not result in a significant breakthrough.

Changing his hard stance against Russia following the summit, Trump recommended that Ukraine should cede some of its territory to materialize a ceasefire as well as to receive assured US security support or continue to fight the war.

With not much leeway, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in talks with Trump today at the White House supported by the EU leaders who expressed solidarity with Ukraine.

Globally, investors are monitoring the developments of the meeting, as any progress in talks could end the war and streamline global trade which is already affected by new US tariffs.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is scheduled to deliver a keynote address at the upcoming Jackson Hole Symposium in Wyoming. His speech may deliver some clues on the direction of the Fed's monetary policy on rate cuts against the backdrop of recent US inflation and jobs data.

According to the CME Group's FedWatch tool, traders are pricing in an 85.1% likelihood for a September interest rate cut.

Today's economic calendar was uneventful except for data on housing starts which showed a rise of 3.7% in July to 294,085 units, up from 283,523 in June.

More crucial inflation data is to due be released tomorrow which could serve as an indicator for Bank of Canada's decision on fixing lending rates. A drop in the domestic inflation rate could trigger the central bank to reduce the borrowing rates.

Major sectors that gained in today's trading were Consumer Staples (1.31%), Consumer Discretionary (0.78%), Communication Services (0.20%), and IT (0.19%).

Among the individual stocks, North West Company Inc (2.30%), Metro Inc (1.82%), Brp Inc (2.43%), and Sylogist Ltd (0.73%) were the prominent gainers.

Major sectors that lost in today's trading were Financials (0.23%), Energy (0.43%), Materials (0.48%), and Healthcare (1.33%).

Among the individual stocks, Brookfield Corporation (0.70%), Bank of Montreal (0.36%), Terravest Capital Inc (1.23%), and Ivanhoe Mines Ltd (1.74%) were the notable losers.

G Mining Ventures Corp (7.33%), Brookfield Business Partners LP (5.66%), and Energy Fuels Inc (5.17%) were among the prime market-moving stocks today.