(RTTNews) - The Canadian market ended sharply higher on Monday, extending gains to a third straight session, thanks to firm commodity prices and rising optimism about interest rate cuts by several central banks, including the Federal Reserve and the Bank of India, by the later part of the second quarter, or early third quarter.
The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index ended with a gain of 312.06 points or 1.42% at 22,259.47, near the day's high.
Technology, materials, energy and industrials shares were among the major gainers. Several stocks from utilities and financials sectors also posted strong gains.
Technology stocks Hut 8 Corp (HUT.TO) and Bitfarms (BITF.TO) gained 6.5% and 5.2%, respectively. Celestica Inc (CLS.TO), Lightspeed Commerce (LSPD.TO), Shopify Inc (SHOP.TO), Constellation Software (CSU.TO), Converge Technology Solutions (CTS.TO), Tecsys Inc (TCS.TO), BlackBerry (BB.TO) and Alithya (ALYA.TO) climbed 2.5 to 4.5%.
Baytex Energy (BTE.TO), up 5.8%, was the top gainer in the Energy Capped Index. Birchcliff Energy (BIR.TO) climbed 4.1%. Arc Resources (ARX.TO), Tourmaline Oil Corp (TOU.TO), Advantage Oil & Gas (AAV.TO), MEG Energy (MEG.TO), Whitecap Resources (WCP.TO), Crescent Point Energy (CPG.TO) and Africa Oil Corp (AOI.TO) gained 2 to 3.5%.
Materials shares Capstone Mining Corp (CS.TO), Lundin Mining Corp (LUN.TO), Iamgold Corp (IMG.TO), Pan American Silver Corp (PAAS.TO), MAG Silver (MAG.TO) and Eldorado Gold (ELD.TO) gained 3 to 6%.
In the financials sector, Great-West Lifeco Inc (GWO.TO) gained 2.6%. The company announced today that it is entering into a long-term strategic partnership with Power Sustainable Manager, a subsidiary of Power Corp of Canada (POW.TO). Power Corporation of Canada gained nearly 2%.
Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO), Manulife Financial (MFC.TO), goeasy (GSY.TO), Sun Life Financial (SLF.TO) and Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS.TO) 1 to 2%.
Brookfield Infra Partners (BIP.UN.TO), Brookfield Renewable Partners (BEP.UN.TO), Innergex Renewable Energy (INE.TO), Algonquin Power & Utilities (AQN.TO) and Hydro One (H.TO) were among the major gainers in the Utilities sector.
