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Roundup: Canadian stock market rallies on upbeat U.S. data

Xinhua, January 9, 2015 Adjust font size:

Canadian stock market extended a solid gain Thursday as the positive U.S. domestic economic helped strengthen the North American equities market.

The benchmark Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index advanced 172.72 points, or 1.21 percent, to 14,457.72 points, with all the eight major sectors ending higher.

TSX climbed as the upbeat U.S. labor market data helped boost investors'confidence and diluted the pressure of crude oil plunge.

The number of Americans who initially applied for jobless benefits in the week ending Jan. 3 slipped 4, 000 to a seasonally adjusted 294,000, said the U.S. Labor Department on Thursday. The figure is considered as a significant signal that the world's biggest economy is gaining more traction.

Financials added 0.55 percent when the market digested the catalytic tick-up effect after the minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday showed the central bank was in no hurry to raise interest rates.

Toronto-Dominion Bank increased 0.64 percent to 53.23 Canadian dollars (about 44.97 U.S. dollars) and Royal Bank of Canada was up 0.61 percent to 78.83 Canadian dollars.

And the biggest gainer, however, is the health care, which jumped 4.17 percent when its heavyweight Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. rallied 6.2 percent to 182.28 Canadian dollars, after the drug maker said it is planning to focus on small to medium-sized acquisitions from privately owned companies in 2015.

Resource stocks bounced back from the rout of the latest sessions as the energy sector advanced 1.62 percent, when many energy producers in Canada managed to recover from the recent collapsing oil prices.

Suncor Energy Inc. jumped 1.98 percent to 35.98 Canadian dollars, and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. hiked 2.86 percent to 33.10 Canadian dollars per share, the biggest increase in a single trading day in two weeks.

Another resource sector, Metals & mining sector also made a solid recovery by rising 2.69 percent as the diversified basic metals producers advanced with strong momentum.

First Quantum Minerals Ltd. soared 6.51 percent to 17.18 Canadian dollars. And Teck Resources Ltd. also strengthened 4.56 percent to 16.27 Canadian dollars ahead of the release of the fourth quarter financial report in 2014.

Other gainers in TSX sectors included Industrials and Info Tech, up 1.81 percent and 1.51 percent respectively.

On the economic front, Statistics Canada reported Thursday morning that its New Housing Price Index rose 0.1 percent in November. Provincially, gains in Alberta and Ontario were offset by a decline in British Columbia.

Canada's central bank said the housing overvaluation is the biggest risk for Canada's economic growth in its biannual Financial System Review last month. However, analyst believed the short-term risk is the oil plunge after data released by Statistics Canada on Wednesday showed that Canada's trade deficit increased to near a two-year high in November as falling oil weighs.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar was down to 0.8449 U. S. dollar Thursday, compared with 0.8460 U.S. dollar in the last trading day. Endite