Equities in Canada’s biggest market turned higher in early trade on Monday as gains for financial and industrial stocks offset a slip in shares of gold miners and other materials companies.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index acquired 19.22 points to start Monday’s session at 15,525.90
The Canadian dollar gained 0.07 cents at 74.36 cents U.S.
Toronto-Dominion Bank on Friday stood by its business practices after a report by CBC News suggested the bank had put staff under pressure to meet tough sales targets.
The “Green Machine” bank saw its shares recover just over a dollar, or 1.5%, to $67.01
Toronto-based insurance group Fairfax Financial Holdings said it would increase the cash component of its offer to buy Allied World Assurance Company Holdings AG by $18.00 per share. Fairfax shares lost a penny to $625.00.
Among gold concerns, Goldcorp took on eight cents to $20.04, while Agnico Eagle Mines gained nine cents to $55.56.
In the tech field, BlackBerry scraped higher 1.5 cents to $9.21, while Constellation Software took on 33 cents to $646.55.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange added 3.68 points to 802.87
Seven of the 12 TSX subgroups moved higher in the session’s first hour, with gold better by 0.6%, information technology clicking 0.5% higher, and utilities improving 0.4%.
The five laggards were weighed most by telecoms, down 0.5%, energy, sliding 0.4%, and consumer discretionary stocks, off 0.2%.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stocks attempted gains Monday as traders anticipated an interest rate hike on Wednesday from the Federal Reserve
The Dow Jones Industrials lost 21.13 points to open the week at 20,881.85. Boeing had the greatest negative impact on the Dow after Morgan Stanley downgraded the stock to equal-weight from overweight.
The S&P 500 sifted off 0.61 points to 2,371.99. The energy sector held slight gains as one of the advancers in the S&P 500 in morning trade.
The NASDAQ added 3.62 points to 5,865.34.
In corporate news, Intel announced it will buy Israeli driverless technology firm Mobileye for $15.3 billion U.S.
The Federal Open Market Committee is set to raise rates at the conclusion of its two-day meeting on Wednesday. Traders generally expect the Fed to hike three times this year, after the central bank raised rates in December for the second time in just about a decade.
Prices for the benchmark 10-year Treasury note faded, raising yields to 2.59% from Friday’s 2.58%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices dropped seven cents to $48.42 U.S. a barrel
Gold prices docked $2.80 to $1,204.20 U.S. an ounce.
