Roundup: Canadian stock market inches higher amid falling oil, downbeat economic data

Canada's main stock market managed to inch higher Friday amid falling oil prices and a series of negative domestic data.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/ TSX Composite Index was 34.10 points, or 0.26 percent slightly higher to conclude the week at 13,358.77 points.

Energy, the biggest loser, shed 2.22 percent over falling oil prices upon the decision from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to maintain its current production, about 31.5 million barrels a day, near record highs.

The light, sweet crude for January delivery lost 1.11 U.S. dollars to settle at 39.97 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Meanwhile, Statistics Canada reported a slate of downbeat economic data on Friday, saying that unemployment rate increased by 0.1 percentage points to 7.1 percent in November, while Canada's merchandise trade deficit with the world widened from 2.3 billion Canadian dollars in September to 2.8 billion Canadian dollars in October, the 14th consecutive monthly deficit, with export volumes down 1.5 percent and prices down 0.4 percent.

Industrials dropped 1.28 percent as the heavyweight Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, a transcontinental railway in Canada and the United States, dived 4.07 percent to 180.15 Canadian dollars (about 134.68 U.S. dollars) per share after Norfolk Southern, a U.S. railway operator, has rejected Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd.'s 28.4-billion-U.S. dollar acquisition proposal.

The TSX index, however, gained momentum as Info Tech shares led the increase by 1.06 percent when Constellation Software Inc. rallied 1.06 percent to 583 Canadian dollars per share after the company announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Gary Jonas Computing Ltd. acquired the assets of PAR Springer-Miller Systems hotel technology business, a division of PAR Technology Corporation.

Financials, the most influential sector, bounced up 0.53 percent after a big slump for two straight days as banks shares stayed in the green, with Toronto-Dominion Bank (The) up 0.87 percent to 54.77 Canadian dollars.

Other gainers included the mining sector and the health care sector, up 0.56 percent and 0.57 percent each.

Although the index eked out a gain on the closing bell, investors in the equities market were still concerned about the rising streak of the Canadian stock market due to the sluggish economic outlook for the fourth quarter.

Since markets had expected a smaller trade deficit of 1.7 billion Canadian dollars in October, "deterioration in the real net trade balance in October leaves net trade tracking a drag on GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2015", according to Nathan Janzen, a senior economist from RBC Economics.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar lowered to 0.7476 U.S. dollar at 4 O'clock (the Canadian Eastern Daylight Time) Friday, from 0.7497 U.S. dollar Thursday, after Statistics Canada's trade report. Enditem