Commodity related stocks bounced off their recent lows and that helped the Canadian markets post gains during Thursday’s session. For the tale of the tape: the TSX Exchange rallied 1.25%, while the TSX Gold Index bounced up 0.8% and the TSX Venture Exchange, Canada’s largest junior exploration bourse, added 0.85% with the advancers edging out the decliners by a 386 to 325 margin on a pathetic 108 million shares traded.

The base metals were nearly all in the red on Monday. Copper sagged during the pre-dawn hours, rallied through the morning, but then backed off again late to finish at $1.6233/lb., down nearly 3¾ cents.

The Canadian markets managed to rally during Monday trading on the Canadian Markets as commodity prices showed some signs of life to start the trading week. For the tale of the tape, the TSX Exchange added 5.52%, while the TSX Gold Index surged 6.2% and the TSX Venture Exchange, Canada’s largest junior exploration bourse, rallied 1.94% with the advancing issuers inching past the decliners by a 390 to 366 margin on volume of 171 million shares traded.

The base metals were all lower in yet more listless trading on Tuesday. Copper was stuck inside a 6-cent range all day, finishing at the low end of it, but losing only a quarter of a cent, to $3.1121/lb. Nickel was also tightly traded, within a 15-cent range, closing about in the middle at $8.3907/lb., down less than two cents.