12:20 PM EDT, 09/12/2024 (MT Newswires) -- The Toronto Stock Exchange is up 164 points with all sectors higher. The biggest gainers are miners (+2.4%) and energy (+1%), followed by utilities, up 0.9%.

In stocks, B2Gold ( BTG ) is up 10.6% and is the most actively traded after it announced overnight that it had reached an agreement with Mali over the Fekola complex. Approvals for certain permits would also be expedited.

Oil prices strengthened for a second session, boosted by the supply cuts caused by Hurricane Francine's path through the Gulf of Mexico, while the International Energy Agency warned demand growth continues to wane as China's economy slows.

Gold prices rose early on Thursday as the dollar weakened ahead of next week's expected Federal Reserve interest-rate cut.

But natural gas edged down ahead of fresh storage data despite tight supply following Hurricane Francine's passage through the Gulf of Mexico.

In terms of domestic data today, TD Economics noted Canadian household net worth (the value of assets less liabilities) gained another $42.4 billion or 0.2% quarter-on-quarter (q/q) to $17.0 trillion in the second quarter of 2024. This is slower than the previous quarter's gain of 3.2% (or $588.9 billion).

TD said despite an acceleration in liabilities growth and a decline in real estate assets, Canadian households' wealth eked out another quarter of gains thanks to solid growth in U.S. equities and a solid contribution from savings in deposits as gains in disposable income outweighed increases in nominal consumption expenditure.

For Q3, TD said it appears households should see further gains on the asset side of their balance sheets with equity markets on both sides of the border in the black, and house prices rising. As for liabilities, lower rates are likely to gradually reignite borrowing activity, potentially putting downward pressure on net worth, but TD doesn't expect a meaningful rebound in borrowing until late 2024 or early 2025. For Q3 2024, TD anticipates moderate gains in household wealth, offering marginal support to consumer spending.

In terms of domestic equity news, focus is on Air Canada ( ACDVF ) . Because of the airline's outsized role in the Canadian airline market, a prolonged pilot strike could negatively impact economic activity, Desjardins said Thursday. The last pilot strike was in 1998 and lasted for two weeks.

Desjardins estimates that a two-week pilot strike could result in a loss to real GDP of around $1.4 billion (or 0.06% month over month) in September. "A longer strike could have an even greater negative impact on the economy," Desjardins added.

However, Desjardins expects that the air transportation industry would recover by around $1.5 billion in October in the event of a two-week pilot strike similar to that in 1998.

In terms of US economic data, this morning, the PPI rose 0.2% in August, a tenth of a percentage point more than expected and following no change the month prior. Year over year, producer prices rose 1.7% in August, down from the 2.1% annual gain in July and marking the smallest annual increase since February.

For Stifel, the Bottom Line is that this morning's hotter than expected read on the PPI coupled with yesterday's hotter read on the core CPI, thanks to a larger increase in shelter and airline fares, underscores the FOMC's "lingering" focus on inflation. Stifel said: "While continuing a disinflationary trend and supporting the Fed's intentions to open the door to rate cuts in less than one weeks' time, the ongoing uncertainty and unevenness in price growth reinforces the need for a slow and tempered approach to policy adjustment as the data continue to evolve."

"In fact," Stifel added, "if the Fed did make a more sizable policy adjustment in September, the market would likely misread or misinterpret such action as an intention to rush back to an accommodative stance as opposed to simply reduce policy firming as inflation moves close to the target."

As such, at least for now, a 50bp cut is off the table for September. According to the CME FedWatch tool, the probability has slipped from 59% as Friday's open to just 17% following this morning's report.