TSX Ends Marginally Up; Technology Stocks Rally

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market ended marginally up on Monday after stocks turned in a mixed performance with investors largely making cautious moves, looking ahead to a slew of central bank meetings.

The U.S. Federal Reserve, scheduled to announce its monetary policy on Wednesday, is expected to pause its recent interest rate increases.

The central bank's accompanying statement as well as key U.S. consumer inflation data are eyed for clues about the outlook for interest rates.

The European Central Bank is widely expected to hike rates by 25 basis points on Thursday. The Bank of Japan and the People's Bank of China are also scheduled to announce their monetary policies this week.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index ended with a gain of 29.25 points or 0.15% at 19,921.31. The index, which dropped to 19,805.94 in early trades, touched a high of 19,933.57 in the session.

Technology stocks rallied, contributing significantly to the market's positive close. The Information Technology Capped Index surged 2.71%.

Lightspeed Commerce (LSPD.TO) surged 7.5%. Shopify Inc (SHOP.TO) climbed 6.2%. Hut 8 Mining (HUT.TO), Docebo Inc (DCBO.TO) and Bitfarms (BITF.TO) gained 5.1%, 4.6% and 4.05%, respectively.

Celestica Inc (CLS.TO), Coveo Solutions (CVO.TO), Kinaxis Inc (KXS.TO), BlackBerry (BB.TO), Constellation Software (CSU.TO), Open Text Corp (OTEX.TO), Descartes Systems Group (DSG.TO) and Enghouse Systems (ENGH.TO) gained 1 to 3.5%.

Healthcare stocks Canopy Growth Corp (WEED.TO) and Tilray Inc (TLRY.TO) climbed 6.6% and 4.3%, respectively. Bausch Health Companies (BHC.TO) gained nearly 1.5%.

Consumer discretionary stocks Sleep Country Canada Holdings (ZZZ.TO) and Dollarma Inc (DOL.TO) gained 2.75% and 2.04%, respectively. Magna International (MG.TO), Linamar Corp (LNR.TO), Mty Food Group (MTY.TO) and Canada Goose Holdings (GOOS.TO) ended higher by 1.3 to 1.7%.

Energy shares fell as oil prices declined sharply on concerns about the outlook for energy demand. Vermilion Energy (VET.TO) and Athabasca Oil Corp (ATH.TO) both ended lower by about 5.5%. Cenovus Energy (CVE.TO), Baytex Energy (BTE.TO), MEG Energy (MEG.TO), Crescent Point Energy (CPG.TO), Enerplus Corp (ERF.TO) and Parex Resources (PXT.TO) lost 2.5 to 4%.