Photo: The Canadian Press

Canada’s main stock exchange closed at an all-time high as commodities like gold and oil benefitted from a weaker U.S. dollar on Thursday.

Mike Archibald, vice-president and portfolio manager with AGF Investments Inc., said strong performances from commodities-based companies in equity markets drove the resource-heavy S&P/TSX composite index up and also led to the Canadian dollar trading above 80 cents US again.

“This’ll be the sixth straight month of positive gains in Toronto, so the bull market in stocks is continuing here,” Archibald said.

“The U.S. dollar is down quite a bit today … that’s got gold, silver, copper, oil all moving higher here today.”

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 81.38 points at 20,311.78.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 153.60 points at 35,084.53. The S&P 500 index was up 18.51 points at 4,419.15, while the Nasdaq composite was up 15.68 points at 14,778.26.

The Canadian dollar traded for 80.32 cents US compared with 79.58 cents US on Wednesday.

Those gains were largely due to weakness in the greenback. Archibald said the U.S dollar is lower after a weaker-than-expected American GDP report for the second quarter.