Canada’s benchmark stock index got a boost Wednesday from rising oil prices and better-than-expected wholesale trade numbers.

At midday in Toronto, the S&P/TSX composite index was up 20.19 points, or 0.17 per cent, to 12,109.59.

The Canadian dollar traded briefly at 99 cents US on Wednesday following the U.S. Federal Reserve announcement Tuesday that interest rates would remain at their current record lows for an extended period. At midday the loonie was at 98.88 cents US.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, oil was 76 cents higher at $82.46 US a barrel, while gold was trading at $1,123.80 US an ounce, up $1.30.

Earlier Wednesday, Statistics Canada reported that wholesale trade jumped by three per cent in January from December, beating analysts’ expectations for a 0.5 per cent advance.

“Canada’s recovery is solidly underway,” BMO Capital Markets economist Benjamin Reitzes wrote in a note to investors. “The strength in both wholesale trade and manufacturing sales points to another good gain for monthly real GDP, setting the table for another solid quarter.”

Suncor Energy Inc. was helped by the rising price of crude, with its shares rising 1.12 per cent at noon to $31.71. But another large energy company, Calgary-based EnCana, fell for the fifth straight day as analysts at Toronto-Dominion Bank, Macquarie Group Ltd. and Genuity Capital Markets cut their ratings. Its stock price was down 2.08 per cent to $32.89.

Markets were also higher south of the border, with the Dow Jones industrial average up 44.37 points, or 0.42 per cent to 10,730.35 and the Nasdaq composite index 14.24 points, or 0.60 per cent, higher at 2,392.25.

Overseas, European and Asian markets were both up.