12:12 PM EDT, 10/30/2025 (MT Newswires) -- The Toronto Stock Exchange is up 120 points with healthcare stocks the best performers, while miners are down 1.4%,

Bausch Health ( BHC ) is up 14% with 1.1 million shares being traded. The company reported its third-quarter results after-trade on Wednesday.

BMO Economics in its morning note, said Presidents Trump and Xi meeting at the APEC summit in South Korea has produced a temporary truce. China's pledge to ease restrictions on the export of rare earth minerals, crack down on the fentanyl trade, and increase U.S. soybean purchases was rewarded with a 10 ppt reduction in the current 20% 'fentanyl' duty. The President's earlier threat to slap an additional 100% duty on imports from China starting Saturday is off the table at least for the next year.

On domestic matters, BMO noted the Bank of Canada is keeping its December cards close to the vest. The policy statement said the "governing council sees the current policy rate at about the right level to keep inflation close to 2 per cent while helping the economy through this period of structural adjustment." However, BMO said, ongoing weakness in labour markets is likely required to spur another rate cut by the BoC. A December move is still possible, though the OIS market is pricing in slim odds of such. "We now suspect that January is a more likely option to pull the trigger on what could be the final easing move this cycle," BMO added.

CIBC's Andrew Grantham noted the measure of payroll employment edged up by only 3K in August, following a "reasonably solid" 26K gain in the prior month. Grantham said gains in areas such as public admin and construction were offset by declines in retail and wholesale. On a year-over-year basis, employment in this series was up by a "meagre" 31K (0.2%) in August. Grantham also noted job vacancies fell by 11K in the latest month, suggesting that total labour demand (employed plus vacant jobs) edged down slightly. There were 3.5 unemployed persons per job vacancy in August, up from 3.3 in the prior month and the highest since November 2016 (excluding the pandemic-impacted months of 2020). Fixed weight wage inflation held broadly steady at 3%.

CTV News said, in what will be a "high stakes meeting" on Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Chinese President Xi Jinping will sit down across from each other to recalibrate a relationship between their countries at a time when the U.S. has pushed Canada to the sidelines in trade talks. According to a senior government official, it will be the first time Canada and China have had substantive discussions between their top leaders in seven years.

Carney tamped down expectations that there would be some type of agreement signed between the two countries. When it comes to lifting Canadian tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), Carney said the relationship needs to "deepen" first.

The U.S. Senate passed legislation Wednesday that would nullify U.S. tariffs on Canada, just as U.S. President Donald Trump is engaged in trade talks in Asia as well as an increasingly bitter trade spat with U.S.'s northern neighbour that is one of its largest economic partners, The Associated Press reported overnight Wednesday.

It said the 50-46 tally was the latest in a series of votes this week to terminate the national emergencies that Trump has used to impose tariffs. "While the resolutions won't ultimately take effect, they have proven to be an effective way for Democrats to expose cracks between the president's trade policy and Republican senators who have traditionally supported free trade arguments," it added.