TSX Boasts Gains by Noon

Equities in Canada’s largest centre advanced on Tuesday, with gold stocks leading gains, as investors awaited the highly anticipated central bank decisions from the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada.The TSX zoomed 205.67 points to reach noon Tuesday at 31,375.64. The Canadian dollar slumped 0.11 at 72.32 cents U.S.The index has jumped about 26% so far in 2025, on pace to outperform the major U.S. indexes, fueled by strong rallies in commodity and financial shares, with support from an easing interest rate environment.The Canadian dollar eked up 0.09 cents to 72.30 cents U.S. Perpetua Resources added $1.29, or 3.7%, to $36.31, while Orla Mining gained 51 cents or 3.1% to $17.14. Utility stocks gained, boosted by TransAlta advancing 95 cents, or 4.9%, to $20.51, after the power producer signed a long-term tolling agreement with Puget Sound Energy.In other corporate news, defense company MDA Space advanced $1.24, or 5.1%, to $25.65 after entering a strategic partnership agreement with the Canadian government and Telesat.Brookfield Corporation announced the pricing of $1 billion of medium-term notes, while Colliers International announced it had acquired 100% ownership of its business in India.Brookfield shares gained 42 cents to $64.74.ON BAYSTREETThe TSX Venture Exchanged leaped 14.97 points, or 1.6%, to 939.98 Eight of the 12 TSX subgroups were higher, led by gold, shinier 2.7%, materials, up 1.8%, and health-care, haler 1.4%. The four laggards were weighed most by energy and financials, backsliding 0.2% each, while telecoms faded 0.1%. ON WALLSTREET The S&P 500 were little changed on Tuesday as Wall Street looked ahead to this week’s interest rate decision from the Federal Reserve.The Dow Jones Industrials revived 146.31 points to pause noon hour EST Tuesday at 47,885.63. The much-broader index recovered 17.27 points to 6,863.78.The tech-heavy NASDAQ strengthened 43.98 points to 23,589.89. Shares of Broadcom rose almost 3%, while Nvidia and Microsoft each added about 2%, on the back of a report from The Information that Microsoft is considering designing custom chips with Broadcom. Traders are waiting for the Fed’s highly awaited interest rate decision on Wednesday, which will be the last of the year. Markets are betting that the central bank will lower its key overnight lending rate by another quarter percentage point as it did at its meetings in September and October. Fed funds futures suggest an 89% chance of a decrease, up from under 67% about a month ago. Prices for the 10-year Treasury were stationery, keeping yields at Monday’s 4.17%. Oil prices slumped 64 cents to $58.24. Gold prices recovered $31.20 to $4,248.90.