Dec. 24, 2009 (Baystreet.ca) --
Canadian stocks will look to continue their winning ways on Thursday ahead of a four-day weekend with commodity prices on the rose. Bay Street's main index has gained in four straight sessions to reach a three-week high.
The S&P/TSX Composite index added 35.96 points to begin an abbreviated session at 11,694.66
Volume will likely be lighter than usual with many traders taking Christmas Eve off. The Canadian market will be closed on Friday for Christmas and again on Monday for Boxing Day.
Crude oil prices are up, extending notable inventory-led gains from the previous session. Gold is up in price, and copper has added 1.7 cents to $3.1295 U.S. per pound.
Goldcorp Inc. said it has matched Minera Penmont's offer to acquire Canplats Resources for $4.40 per share in a cash and stock deal.
Nuinsco Resources Ltd. announced the closing of a further tranche of its non-brokered private placement, having sold an aggregate of 11.11 million Flow-Through Units were sold for gross proceeds of nearly $1 million to the MineralFields Group.
Priszm Income Fund announced that it has sold its food processing facility located in Toronto for gross proceeds of $11.5 million.
The Canadian dollar was flat at 95.38 cents U.S.
ON BAYSTREET
All but two of the 14 TSX subgroups were higher, led by gold, ahead 0.9%, materials next, with a 0.7% improvement, and global base metal stocks were 0.6% higher.
The two losing groups were off only slightly, and they were consumer discretionary and information technology stocks, off less than 0.1% each.
The TSX Venture Exchange gained 6.73 points to 1,457.38, while the Nasdaq Canada index advanced 2.14 points to 733.47.
ON WALLSTREET
In New York, stocks were poised for a moderate open on Thursday, a half day of Christmas Eve trading to close out a holiday-shortened week, showing little reaction to Senate votes and economic reports.
The Dow Jones Industrials was up slightly, by 17.46 points to 10,483.90, while the broader S&P 500 was up 3.18 points to 1,123.77, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 7.45 points to 2,277.09.
Stock futures measure current index values against their perceived future performance and offer an indication of how markets may open when trading begins.
Futures this morning showed little reaction to the Senate's 60-39 vote to pass the health care bill, which was widely expected to be approved. The Senate also passed a $290 billion U.S. increase to the amount of debt the Treasury is permitted by law to have, raising the debt ceiling to $12.394 trillion from $12.104 trillion U.S.
Stocks closed slightly higher on Wednesday, a fourth consecutive day of gains. Market-movers included rising tech shares and commodity prices, as well as a report that said new home sales posted the biggest decline since April.
Economically speaking, the Commerce Department released its report on durable goods orders, showing a gain of 0.2% in November which fell short of market expectations. A consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com had projected that new orders for long-lasting manufactured goods rose 0.4% in November after a decline of 0.6% the previous month.
Excluding transportation, durable goods orders still rose 0.2%, falling short of the 1% rise expected by Briefing.com consensus.
The government's weekly jobless claims report also came in Thursday morning. The government announced that 452,000 claims were filed in the week ended Dec. 19. Economists had expected the number of first-time filers to fall to 470,000 from the previous week's 480,000 new claims.
The stock exchange will close at 1 p.m. ET Thursday and will remain dark Friday.
Treasury prices were lower, raising yields on the benchmark 10-year note to 3.76% from Tuesday and Wednesday's 3.75%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
The price of a barrel of oil gained 20 cents to $76.87 U.S.
Gold prices gained eight dollars to $1,102 an ounce U.S.
