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Roundup: Canadian stock market inches higher as financials rebound

Xinhua, January 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

Canada's main stock market in Toronto on Thursday eked out a modest gain as financial shares recovered from Wednesday's sharp drop, although the market sentiment was still weighed by the selloff in resource shares.

Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index added 33.08 points, or 0.23 percent, to 14,635.96 points, as the gains driven by non-resource shares including financials offset losses in energy and mining sectors, which lost 1.11 percent and 1. 64 percent respectively.

Resource shares resumed the downward trend amid concerns about the outlook of oil prices, although oil stabilized Thursday following the heavy selloff on the previous day. Light, sweet crude for March delivery gained 8 cents Thursday to settle at 44. 53 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

However, TSX index got a small gain Thursday when financials, the most weighted sector, went up 0.28 percent, from a 1.17 percent selloff Wednesday.

Most of the banks and insurance shares rallied when Toronto- Dominion Bank rose 0.88 percent to 51.64 Canadian dollars (about 40.95 U.S. dollars), and Manulife Financial Corp. strengthened 1. 33 percent to 20.57 Canadian dollars per share.

Meanwhile, information technology shares led the TSX gainers by 2.08 percent when heavyweight CGI Group Inc. jumped 3.08 percent to 49.90 Canadian dollars, after the Quebec-based IT and business consulting services provider announced Thursday morning that it would cooperate with Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Japanese IT giant Hitachi, Ltd., to launch secure, private and hybrid Cloud Services.

Industrial shares were up 0.78 percent, after Canadian Pacific Railway advanced 1.81 percent to 224.78 Canadian dollars; telecom shares grow 0.97 percent when telecommunication giant Rogers rose 0.7 percent to 44.86 Canadian dollars over its better-than- expected adjusted net income report.

On the currency front, due to investors' concern about the outlook of the oil prices, the Canadian dollar on Thursday moved down to 0.7930 U.S. dollar from 0.7987 U.S. dollar on Wednesday. And analysts believed that the Canadian dollar may suffer more losses when the greenback appreciates against major currencies, boosted by a stronger economic recovery in the U.S. Endite