12:15 PM EDT, 10/10/2024 (MT Newswires) -- The Toronto Stock Exchange is up 72 points at midday, with most sectors positive.

The biggest gainers are energy (+2%) and miners (+1%).

Financials is down 0.7%. TD Bank (TD.TO) is the most actively traded and down nearly 5%, after the Wall Street Journal reported that the bank is expected to pay about US$3 billion in penalties and accept limits on its growth as part of a settlement with US regulators over a money laundering investigation.

Oil prices moved higher early on Thursday following two days of losses as worries over a spreading Middle Eastern war continue to support prices despite tepid demand.

Gold prices rose following four losing sessions as the dollar weakened after the United States reported inflation cooled last month, though not as much as expected.

CIBC noted the U.S. September inflation report showed "more stickiness in price pressures", with inflation surprising on the upside for the second consecutive month. Core CPI prices rose 0.3% m/m in the month, one tick above consensus expectations. Three month annualized core CPI rose to 3.1% as of September. Headline inflation came in at 0.2% month-over-month, also one notch above forecasters' predictions. In year over year terms, headline inflation came down one tick to 2.4%, while core rose by a notch to 3.3%.

The surprise in today's report, CIBC said, was driven by hotter non-housing services prices and core goods, which strengthened after several months of modest deflation. Shelter inflation came down after last month's spike, which is the main silver lining of the report, it added.

Elsewhere, BMO Economics said today's CPI report is "not what the Fed wanted to see after its bold move in September" and virtually rules out another large cut in November. "While we still lean toward a quarter-point reduction, much will depend on whether we see a second straight strong jobs report in October, it added.

Tiago Figueiredo over at Desjardins said today's inflation release is unlikely to stop U.S. policymakers from continuing to normalize their policy rates. But, he added, the data reinforces Chair Powell's recent signal, suggesting future rate cuts would be made at 25 basis point increments. The Desjardins view remains that this is the most likely path going forward as concerns over the labour market have eased following last week's payrolls report. Desjardins continues to expect 25 basis points cuts in November and December of this year.

Still, according to David Rosenberg, what has "saved the bond market" in the aftermath of the CPI report were the jobless claims data for the October 5 week. He noted the question is how much of this was weather related, but claims jumped to 258k from 225k -- far above consensus views of 230k. This is the highest reading in 14 months. Rosenberg said his first take on the data is that, adjusted for the hurricane effect, claims still would have risen to an above-expected 240k. So, he added, there is no denying that, as much as the CPI was disappointing to the inflation doves, the claims number weather-adjusted is equally disappointing to the macro bulls. "Not to mention that the backlog of continuing claims spiked (September 28th week) to a two-month high of 1.861 million from 1.819 million (consensus here was 1.830 million) -- and this is underscoring that the labor market is building up slack (though admittedly not apparent in last Friday's figures)."