Financials and Industrials lift Canadian market

Canada's main stock market in Toronto moved up on Thursday as gains in Financial and Industrial stocks outpaced declines in gold and silver prices.

After suffering its worst single-day decline in five weeks, the Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite bounced back with a gain of 21.13 points, or 0.14 percent, to finished the session at 15,218.31 points. Six of the ten sub-sectors moved up on the session.

Financials and Industrials had the most influence on the day, rising 0.75 percent and 0.56 percent, respectively.

Financials group was led by insurance firm Manulife shares jumped 2.63 percent to 25.01 Canadian dollars (18.74 U.S. dollars). Canada's largest banks also contributed with respective gains of 1.13 percent and 0.90 percent for Toronto-Dominion Bank and Royal Bank of Canada.

Industrials sub-sector was lifted by Montreal-based Bombardier Inc. stock price gaining 2.09 percent to 1.95 Canadian dollars (1.46 U.S. dollars) after providing details on their 2017 plans which anticipates cash flow to double through growth in the rail division and an increase in sales of their C series aircraft. Shares of the plane and train manufacturer were the most traded during the session with a volume in excess of 18 million.

Other groups to finish in the green were Information Technology (0.79 percent), Energy (0.50 percent) Consumer Discretionary (0.32 percent), and Telecommunications (0.01 percent).

Shares of Athabasca Oil Corporation, which is outside of the TSX Energy Group, soared 22.54 percent to 1.74 Canadian dollars (1.30 U.S. dollars) after the Calgary-based energy firm announced an agreement to purchase the thermal oil unit from Norwegian firm Statoil ASA for 832 million Canadian dollars (about 623 million U.S. dollars). The unit is able to produce 24,000 barrels of crude oil a day at a breakeven cost of approximately 44 U.S. dollars each.

Materials group saw the largest decline for a third straight session, falling 2.15 percent after gold and silver prices lost ground. Spot price of gold extended its ten-month low by sinking 12.30 dollars to 1133.40 U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, price for a pound of silver retreated 1.21 dollars to 16.02 U.S. dollars.

As a result, gold miners OceanaGold Corporation and B2Gold Corp. shares slumped 9.49 percent and 9.06 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, Silver Wheaton Corp., a silver and gold producer based out of Vancouver, saw shares dip 8.30 percent to 22.75 Canadian dollars (17.05 U.S. dollars).

Other groups to close the session in the negative were Consumer Staples (0.52 percent), Utilities (0.49 percent), and Health Care (0.38 percent).

Consumer Staples group, which consists of firms in the food industry fell as shares of Empire Company Limited dipped 17.01 percent to 15.52 Canadian dollars (11.63 U.S. dollars) after adjusted quarterly earnings fell to 32.9 million Canadian dollars (about 24.7 U.S. dollars), a 70.28 percent decline compared to the three months prior.

The Nova Scotia-based firm owns Sobeys, a national supermarket that is the grocery partner of Air Miles. The loyalty rewards program has received negative publicity during the year due to plans to poor customer service and decision to expire points.

On the economic front, Statistics Canada reported a second straight month of decline in manufacturing sales from their monthly survey. During the month of October, the figure fell 0.8 percent to 51.0 billion Canadian dollars (about 38.2 U.S. dollars). By category, the biggest decreases came in beverage and tobacco (2.5 percent), machinery (2.5 percent), primary metal (2.4 percent), and fabricated metal product (2.3 percent).

By province, seven of ten lost ground, highlighted by Alberta (2.0 percent), Quebec (1.2 percent), and Ontario (0.8 percent).

The Canadian dollar fell 0.0045 U.S. dollars to close the day at 0.7493. Endite