01:55 PM EDT, 08/08/2025 (MT Newswires) -- The Toronto Stock Exchange is up 68 points with most sectors higher.

The biggest gainers are miners and info tech, up 2.4% and 1.4%, respectively.

Financials are down 0.05%. Sun Life Financial ( SLF ) which reported a second-quarter core earnings beat on Thursday, is down 7.2% with more than 1.7 million shares being traded. National Bank, which downgraded the stock to Sector Perform, and cut its target to $87, cited concerns with U.S. operations.

In terms of data, TD Economics noted Canada's economy shed jobs in July, while the unemployment rate was steady as labour force shrunk. Job losses were concentrated in full-time positions (-51k) and in the private sector (-39K). The unemployment rate held steady at 6.9% in June, as the labour force shrunk (-33k). Despite the flat headline, the share of people who have been unemployed long term (>27 weeks) was the highest since 1998 at 23.8%.

TD also noted Wage growth was steady in July -- average hourly wages rose 3.3% versus a year ago, up slightly from 3.2% in June.

Both TD and CIBC noted that the the Bank of Canada has a fair bit of time before its next rate setting date on September 17th. More data will be released in the interim including another employment report, two inflation releases and quarterly GDP. CIBC adds that today's weaker than expected employment figure supports its call of a 25bp interest rate reduction at that September meeting.

When it comes to the Bank of Canada, National Bank noted the central bank retained an easing bias in July, acknowledging rate cuts may be in store if price pressures can be contained. "While employment is one of the four indicators guiding monetary policy, it's the next two CPI reports that should have the most impact on the September decision. We think today's data warrant higher September rate cut odds but if the next CPI report comes out soft, we should see the meeting's easing probability rise above 50%," National Bank said.