12:17 PM EDT, 08/13/2024 (MT Newswires) -- The Toronto Stock Exchange is up 130 points at midday, building on the hat trick of wins over the last three full trading sessions with traders more reassured on U.S. producer price inflation data.

Gold traded at a record high as the dollar and treasury yields weakened after a U.S. inflation measure rose less than expected last month.

Oil traded lower following five days of gains despite continuing Middle East tensions and a lower-than-expected rise in a key U.S. inflation measure as the International Energy Agency said it expects weak demand growth this year and next as China's economy struggles.

In terms of data today, Rosenberg Research noted U.S. producer price inflation was "tame" in July even though there was every reason to believe it would pop based on what the commodity market did during the month, as well as the soft tone to the U.S. dollar. But what we got was a +0.1% MoM reading at the headline level (consensus was +0.2%). This was the third month in a row of +0.2% MoM or lower numbers. Even with a +1.9% bounce in energy and +0.6% in final demand food costs, the core (excluding food and energy) segment came in flat (consensus was +0.2%), and June's initial +0.4% tally was marked down a tad to now show +0.3%. The YoY headline PPI inflation pulled a major retreat to +2.2% from +2.7% and the core to +2.4% from +3.0% (consensus here was +2.6%).

"Encouragingly," the research said, "the most reliable leading indicator among all the components of the PPI report (for the product sector), the core intermediate prices segment, came in light at +0.1% MoM and has shown no pulse at all over the February-July period, while the YoY trend is pretty well running flat as a pancake."

"Nothing here for the Fed policy hawks or the long-standing bond bears," the research added.