Roundup: Canadian stock market edges up over rising commodities futures prices, resources shares

Canada's main stock market in Toronto on Tuesday moved slightly higher as commodities prices gained momentum, which helped strengthen resource-related shares.

Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index was up 30.61 points, or 0.2 percent, to 15,104.74 points, as Energy and Metals and Mining led the increase by 1.02 percent and 3.38 percent on the closing bell, respectively.

A rally in global commodities prices helped stimulate Tuesday's rise when light, sweet crude for July delivery moved up 1.06 U.S. dollars to settle at 61.26 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and the basic metals prices on the London Metal Exchange (LME) closed higher mostly Tuesday, with the three- month unofficial copper price up 19 U.S. dollars, or 0.32 percent, to 6,031 dollars per tonne.

Most of the resources shares turned positive after the slump last week.

The basic metals giants Teck Resources Ltd. jumped 5.68 percent to 15.26 Canadian dollars (about 12.30 U.S. dollars) while First Quantum Minerals Ltd. hiked 4.97 percent to 17.1 Canadian dollars per share.

Meanwhile, Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. soared 3.09 percent to 11.34 Canadian dollars and Canada's oil and gas company Encana advanced 1.16 percent to 15.64 Canadian dollars.

The most heavily weighed sector Financials was up 0.35 percent when the insurance service provider Manulife Financial Corp. added 0.31 percent to 23.01 Canadian dollars.

By contrast, Industrials lost 0.2 percent when the railway maker Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. plunged 1 percent to 207.58 Canadian dollars a share.

Air Canada, however, bucked the trend by increasing 1.34 percent to 14.38 Canadian dollars after the country's biggest airlines boosted expectations for its key financial targets, saying that the return on invested capital is now expected to hit between 13 percent and 16 percent annually.

On the economic beat, the falling crude market since mid-2014 has been arousing investors' concern about Canada's economy, which is closely related to the oil patch, especially after Statistics Canada reported last week that the country's economy contracted by 0.6 percent at an annualized rate in the first quarter.

Canada's finance minister Joe Oliver said Tuesday that he fully expects the Canadian economy to rebound after it shrank in the first three months of the year.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar was traded at 0.8059 U.S. dollar Tuesday, compared with 0.7978 U.S. dollar Monday. Endite