(Updates prices, adds comments and prices)
By Shashwat Chauhan
Jan 31 (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index edged
higher on Tuesday as technology stocks rose after slowing U.S.
wage growth raised hopes that the Federal Reserve could go easy
on interest rate hikes.
At 10:19 a.m. ET (1519 GMT), the Toronto Stock Exchange's
S&P/TSX composite index was up 57.09 points, or 0.28%,
at 20,629.2, on track for its best January performance since
2019.
Technology stocks were the top gainers on the
index, rising 1.5% with Shopify up 2.8%.
Data showed Canada's economy expanded slightly in November,
matching estimates, and likely stalled in December, broadly in
line with the Bank of Canada's expectations for the economy to
flatline during the first half of this year.
The Bank of Canada raised its overnight lending rate by an
expected 25-basis-point last week, clocking a record pace of
425-basis-point of hikes in 10 months.
Meanwhile, U.S. labor costs increased at their slowest pace
in a year in the fourth quarter as wage growth slowed.
"Basically, wage growth is slowing in the U.S. even though
unemployment remains extremely low ... it feeds into the
narrative that the Fed is going slow down its pace," said Angelo
Kourkafas, investment strategist at Edward Jones Investments.
"This is consistent with the narrative of disinflation and
that stability is helping growth and tech stocks."
Investors are awaiting monetary policy decisions from the
U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the
Bank of England (BoE) this week for clues on the trajectory of
interest rates.
Among individual stocks, Lithium Americas gained
11.3% after the miner said it would jointly invest to develop
the Thacker Pass mine in Nevada along U.S. carmaker General
Motors .
(Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru
Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)
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