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Commodities help Canadian market begin week ahead

Xinhua, December 6, 2016 Adjust font size:

Canada's main stock market in Toronto opened the week in the positive as rising energy and copper prices contributed.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index advanced 42.65 points, or 0.28 percent, to finish the session at 15,095.17 points. Seven of the ten sub-sectors ended the day ahead.

Materials and Energy groups experienced the biggest gains on the day, gaining 1.02 percent and 0.63 percent, respectively.

The Materials group, which consists of producers of gold, precious metals and fertilizers, rose as spot price of copper rose 8.39 cents to 2.6961 U.S. dollars a pound.

As a result, stock prices of copper miners First Quantum Minerals Ltd. and Lundin Mining Corporation rose 5.76 percent to 15.61 Canadian dollars (11.76 U.S. dollars) and 3.35 percent to 7.09 Canadian dollars (5.34 U.S. dollars), respectively.

Meanwhile, spot price of gold faded 1.90 U.S. dollars per ounce to 1174.40.

Energy stocks continued to build off the momentum from last week's deal by Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members to decrease supply of crude oil by three percent beginning in January. Price of Brent crude oil continued to build off a 16-month high, inching up 2 cents to 54.29 U.S. dollars a barrel for February delivery.

Also contributing to the sector's growth was natural gas prices surging 4.74 percent to 3.599 U.S. dollars per million British thermal units.

Alberta energy firms Husky Energy Inc., Baytex Energy Corp., and Encana Corporation were among the top-10 most traded stocks on the day and saw respective gains of 2.08 percent, 1.98 percent, and 0.71 percent.

Other groups to finish the day in the green were Industrials (0.38 percent), Utilities (0.22 percent), Telecommunications (0.17 percent), Consumer Discretionary (0.15 percent) and Financials (0.14 percent).

Groups on the losing side on Monday were Health Care (1.19 percent), Consumer Staples (0.50 percent), and Information Technology (0.31 percent).

Neovasc Inc., a biotech firm that is outside of the TSX Health Care subgroup saw shares rocket 63.79 percent to 1.90 Canadian dollars (1.43 U.S. dollars) after a 75-million U.S. dollar deal with industry leader Boston Scientific Corporation. The agreement, which is pending regulatory approval and is expected to be completed by the end of the month, consists of 67.9 million dollars for the company's tissue processing division and 7.1 million dollars for a 15 percent stake in the British Columbia based firm.

The dip in Consumer Staples group was due to Premium Brands Holding Corporation, a Richmond based speciality food distributor company, completing the issuance of 100 million Canadian dollars (about 753 million U.S. dollars) worth of convertible bonds. Shares of the firm slipped 2.65 percent to 65.68 Canadian dollars (49.48 U.S. dollars).

The Canadian dollar ticked up 0.0007 to 0.7533 U.S. dollars. Endite