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Canadian stocks rebound on eve of U.S. election

Xinhua, November 8, 2016 Adjust font size:

Canada's main stock market ended a four-day losing streak as investors responded favorably to U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton being cleared of criminal charges by the FBI over new emails on the eve of Tuesday's presidential election.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index soared 143.20 points, or 0.99 percent, to open the week at 14,652.45 points. Nine of the index's ten sub-sectors finished the session ahead.

After slumping 1.88 percent over the past four sessions, Monday's 143.20-point gain was the biggest single-day upswing since Oct. 18 when the index jumped 155.73.

The TSX Energy Group experienced the most growth on the day, rising 1.84 percent as crude oil snapped a six-day losing streak. Brent opened the week in London up 1.40 percent to 46.29 U.S. dollars a barrel for January delivery.

Shares of Calgary-based Encana Corp. and Baytex Energy Corp. rose 3.65 percent to 13.64 Canadian dollars (10.20 U.S. dollars) and 4.24 percent to 5.16 Canadian dollars (3.86 U.S. dollars).

The consumer discretionary sub-sector, which features producers of non-essential products such as automobiles, apparel and entertainment, also had a strong day, climbing 1.66 percent.

The stock price of Magna International Inc., a large automobile supplier with over 152,000 employees across 29 countries, advanced 1.51 percent to 53.01 Canadian dollars (39.65 U.S. dollars) after an agreement was reached in their Windsor, Ontario plant to end a brief strike for 1,000 workers.

The industrials group also performed well, gaining 1.63 percent as Montreal-based Air Canada shares soared 7.45 percent to 12.83 Canadian dollars (9.60 U.S. dollars) following better-than-expected quarterly profits. The nation's largest airline saw net income shoot up 75.7 percent to 768 million Canadian dollars (574 million U.S. dollars) thanks to lower fuel costs and an increase in passengers per flight.

Among the other groups to finish ahead, financials closed ahead 1.35 percent, while health care advanced 1.10 percent.

The materials group, which features miners of gold and other metals, was the only group to lose ground on the day, as the spot price of gold fell 23.60 U.S. dollars an ounce to 1281.50.

Shares of heavyweight gold miners B2Gold Corp., Kinross Gold Corp. and Yamana Gold Inc. were the three most traded on the day, falling 4.92 percent, 4.00 percent, and 3.23 percent, respectively.

The Canadian dollar ended the day up 0.0018 to 0.7479 U.S. dollar, compared to Friday's closing rate of 0.7461. Endi