Canadian stocks climb over central bank's interest rate decision

Toronto Stock Exchange, Canada's main stock market, on Wednesday rebounded from Tuesday's slip as the country's central bank decided to maintain its overnight rate target at 1 percent Wednesday.

The exchange's benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index rose 38.55 points, or 0.25 percent, to 15,657.63 points, with six of the eight most weighed sectors in the positive territory.

The market sentiment strengthened as Bank of Canada, the country's central bank, said it was leaving its key rate unchanged at 1 percent, in line with investors' expectation.

And traders were less concerned about Ukraine geopolitical tension after Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko have discussed possible steps to realize lasting ceasefire in southeastern Ukraine, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov Wednesday.

In direct response, the financial sector rose 0.4 percent, with most of the Canadian giant banks in the rising streak. Toronto- Dominion Bank advanced 0.73 percent to 57.72 Canadian dollars ( about 53.01 U.S. dollars), and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce was up 0.71 percent to 105.51 Canadian dollars per share.

The mining sector moved up 1.49 percent, leading the gainers in TSX, driven by the rally of basic metals shares, when First Quantum Minerals Ltd. jumped 3.58 percent to 24.90 Canadian dollars and Lundin Mining Corp. grew 1.74 percent to 5.86 Canadian dollars.

However, the gold group, a subsector of the mining sector, lost ground over the easing of Ukraine tensions, with S&P/TSX Global Gold Index going down 0.72 percent, when the world's biggest gold miner Barrick Gold gave back 0.97 percent to 19.33 Canadian dollars.

Info-tech also rallied, up 1.27 percent, with Canada's smartphone maker BlackBerry surging 2.45 percent to 11.70 Canadian dollars.

In other sectors, Energy was slightly down 0.08 percent, while Health Care lost 0.19 percent.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar on Wednesday rose to 0.9184 U.S. dollar, compared with 0.9149 U.S. dollar Tuesday, when Bank of Canada said that the export sectors in the second quarter were growing, which was notably supported by stronger U.S. investment spending and the past depreciation of the Canadian dollar, and that this pickup will need to be sustained before it will translate into higher business investment and hiring.