Canadian Stocks Pull Back From Record Highs Amid Middle East Truce

(RTTNews) - Following the US-brokered ceasefire in the Middle Eastern conflict, Canadian stocks gave back ground on Wednesday amid profit-taking from yesterday's record high levels.

Today, the benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index, after opening a little lower than yesterday's close, fell sharply, hitting the day's low hours before close, and managed to settle at 26,566.32 down by 152.30 (or 0.57 percent).

The 12-day war between Israel and Iran came to an end yesterday after US President Donald Trump stated that both countries have agreed to a ceasefire. With the truce holding, fears of disruption to the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, through which around 20% of the global oil and energy shipments pass through, stands abated.

Analysts are looking forward to an interest rate cut by US Fed in the coming months in order to ignite the economy.

Yesterday, data released by Statistics Canada revealed that the Consumer Price Index Median rose 3.0% year-on-year in May, down from 3.1% the previous month and CPI Trimmed-Mean rose by 3% on a year-on-year basis.

Canada's inflation rate month-on-month increased 0.60% in May over the previous month.

Annual inflation rate was at 1.7% in May, unchanged from the previous month.

At a NATO summit today, Canadian PM Mark Carney committed to reach NATO's new defense spending target of 5% of GDP by 2035 but deflected concerns about domestic trade-offs due to this major spending increase.

Post G7 Summit, the Canadian PM had stated that US and Canada are working together for a better trade deal to be signed within 30 days. So far, no further details have been divulged on its progress.

Analysts feel that if such a deal is made, it could boost the economy, provided the Middle East truce holds.

Major sectors that lost in today's trading were Consumer Staples (1.69%), Real Estate (1.35%), Consumer Discretionary (0.86%), Industrials (0.82%), Utilities (0.64%), Energy (0.53%), Financials (0.43%), IT (0.32%), and Communication Services (0.06%).

Among the individual stocks, George Weston (2.29%), Colliers International (3.54%), Gildan Actiwear (2.00%), Brookfield Business (5.25%), and Fortis (1.55%) were the notable losers.

Among the major sectors, only Healthcare (1.44%) gained reasonably in today's trading.

Among the individual stocks, Bausch Health (3.07%) and Chartwell Retirement Residences (0.84%) were the prominent gainers.

Notably, tech stock Blackberry posted strong Q1 results and lifted its annual revenue forecast.