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(Bloomberg) — Canadian equities jumped as a confluence of news sent oil and precious metals surging on Thursday.The S&P/TSX Composite Index closed 1.7% higher with energy companies leading the charge. U.S. President Donald Trump said Saudi Arabia and Russia would make major output cuts, though uncertainty swirled over the size of the curbs and whether reductions would be made at all. Western Canada Select crude oil traded at a $16 discount to West Texas Intermediate.Earlier Trump said in a couple of tweets that he expects Saudi Arabia and Russia to cut oil production by 10 million to 15 million barrels. His comments immediately triggered skepticism as the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin hadn’t agreed to a production cut to boost prices. Saudi Arabia also didn’t confirm the cuts, but called for an urgent meeting of the OPEC+ producer alliance.The Canadian dollar strengthened to C$1.4171 per U.S. dollar and the 10-year government bond yield climbed 5 basis points to 0.664%.Gold and silver miners were also among the best performers as record U.S. jobless claims spurred the flight to safe havens. The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits soared to 6.65 million last week, a level unimaginable just a month ago. The spot price of gold rose 1.4% to $1,614.03 an ounce.As Canadian markets try to find some normalcy amid big volatility spikes, Toronto-Dominion Bank’s Chief Executive Officer Bharat Masrani said the nation’s central bank doesn’t need to buy up corporate bonds to boost liquidity because debt markets are returning to more normal conditions.The Bank of Canada launched a program to buy short-term commercial paper, but hasn’t yet ventured into buying longer-term company bonds. It began its first-ever foray into quantitative easing this week to reduce strains in the market brought on by Covid-19 shutdowns, buying C$1.8 billion ($1.27 billion) in government bonds.What was a roaring start to Canada’s spring house-hunting season has ended in a whimper. By the time the dust settles on what’s likely to be months of disruption, the nation could see resales plunge 30% to a 20-year low and the first nationwide drop in prices since 2009, according to Royal Bank of Canada.On the virus front, Covid-19 has now infected 1 million people across the world, a milestone reached just four months after it first surfaced in the Chinese city of Wuhan. More than 51,000 have died and 208,000 recovered in what has become the biggest global public health crisis of our time.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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