Apr. 5, 2010 (Baystreet.ca) --
Another round of encouraging economic news from across the border and a rally in the price of crude oil helped the Canadian stock market to hit a new 18-month high in mid-morning deals Monday. The S&P/TSX Composite Index picked up 29.56 points by noon to 12,180.62 The loonie was within a whisker of parity versus the greenback. The Energy Index gained ground, as Canadian Natural Resources rose 2.10% and Encana Corp was up 21.3%. Among base metals stocks, Major Drilling moved up 2.99% and Teck Resources gathered 1.34%. Gold stocks recovered from their early morning losses, with the index adding strength. Agnico-Eagle Mines moved up 1.38%. The company said Thursday that it will acquire all of the shares of Comaplex Minerals that it does not already own. Comaplex rallied 24.25%. Gold miner PC Gold said it will raise $6.96 million through a private placement to fund its Ontario gold mine. The stock surged 7.59%. Minerals property company International Tower Hill Mines gained 2.05% after announcing the closing of the first tranche of its non-brokered financing of five million common shares of the company at a price of $6.00 per common share. Information technology stocks rebounded from early morning lows. Open Text added 1.30%. Research In Motion was trading at $69.04, recovering from an intraday low of $67.84. However, the stock was still down over 10% compared to its last Monday level. Bombardier Inc. slipped 2.25% to $5.58. The company said Thursday that it will repurchase 0.21% each of its Class A and Class B shares. Macquarie trimmed the price target on the stock to $7.10 from $7.60. Investment management company CI Financial edged down 0.05% despite reporting gross retail sales of $1.1 billion and net sales of $243 million for the month of March. Assets under management at March 31, 2010 were $68.1 billion, an increase of $1.8 billion or 2.7% over the month. With no major economic data on tap from Canada, traders will focus on the movements of commodities prices to get clues for today's trading. The Canadian dollar continued its push toward parity with its American counterpart, gaining 0.79 cents to 99.72 cents U.S. ON BAYSTREET Nine of the 14 TSX subgroups reached higher by midday. Energy was the champion, powering 1.6% higher, followed by metals and mining stocks, ahead 1%, and global base metals, gaining 0.6%. Among the laggards, consumer staples suffered 0.6%, financials were down 0.5% and information technology slid 0.1%. The TSX Venture Exchange advanced 19.22 points to 1,621.76, while the Nasdaq Canada index gave back 0.21 points to 764.27. ON WALLSTREET In New York, stocks rallied Monday as investors returning from the long weekend welcomed last week's jobs report and the strong launch of Apple's iPad tablet computer. The Dow Jones industrial average added 52.60 points by noon to 10,979.67, adding to Thursday's 18-month high. The S&P 500 tacked on 9.34 points to 1,187.44. The Nasdaq grew 24.03 points to 2,426.61. U.S. markets were closed for Good Friday, making Monday the first time investors could react to Friday's big jobs report from the Department of Labor. The report showed that employers added 162,000 jobs last month, after shedding 14,000 jobs in February. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.7%. In addition to the jobs report, investors were also encouraged by strong sales for Apple's iPad, which launched Saturday amid much fanfare. With the job market showing signs of improvement, investors are now looking to the corporate sector for direction. The quarterly earnings period gets underway next week when Alcoa reports first-quarter results. Economically speaking, activity in the service sector of the U.S. economy improved markedly in March, indicating that the recovery is broadening out, according to a survey of companies released Monday by the Institute for Supply Management. The ISM non-manufacturing index rose to 55.4% from 53.0% in February. The gain was stronger than expected. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch forecast the ISM non-manufacturing index to rise to 54%. Readings above 50% in the ISM diffusion index indicate that activity at more firms is expanding rather than contracting. Also, contracts for the sale of existing homes rose sharply in February, possibly indicating a second surge of home sales due to the extended homebuyer tax credit, a widely watched industry report said Monday. In the single-biggest monthly rise since October 2001, the National Association of Realtors' (NAR) Pending Home Sales Index rose 8.2% in February to 97.6 from a downwardly revised 90.2 in January. The increase surprised economists surveyed by Briefing.com, who were expecting a 1% decrease. It was also a 17% improvement over last year, when the index sat at 83.2 in February The benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose slightly, lowering its yield to 3.99%, the highest levels since October 2008. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions. The price of a barrel of oil gained $1.74 to $86.61 U.S. Gold prices gained four dollars to $1,130 U.S. an ounce.
