Canadian Stocks Seeing Modest Strength After Recovering From Initial Weakness

(RTTNews) - After recovering from an initial move to the downside, Canadian stocks are seeing modest strength during trading on Monday.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index is up 31.96 points or 0.2 percent at 20,228.65 after falling as low as 20,151.92 in early trading.

Energy stocks have helped lead the turnaround on the day, with the S&P/TSX Capped Energy Index climbing by 1.2 percent.

The strength among energy stocks comes despite a decrease by the price of crude oil, as crude for May delivery is falling $0.40 to $80.30 a barrel.

Substantial strength has also emerged among healthcare stocks, resulting in a 2.6 percent surge by the S&P/TSX Capped Health Care Index.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report, which was released while the markets were closed for Good Friday, showed employment in the U.S. increased roughly in line with economist estimates in the month of March.

The report said non-farm payroll employment climbed by 236,000 jobs in March after jumping by an upwardly revised 326,000 jobs in February.

Economists had expected employment to rise by about 240,000 jobs compared to the addition of 311,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department said the unemployment rate edged down to 3.5 percent in March from 3.6 percent in February. The unemployment rate was expected to be unchanged.

On the heels of the report, CME Group's FedWatch Tool is currently indicating a 65.7 percent chance the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates by a quarter point next week.

Traders are also looking ahead to key U.S. inflation data later in the week along with reports on retail sales and industrial production as well as the minutes of the latest Federal Reserve meeting.