Stocks Finish Volatile Session in Green

Equities in Toronto survived a dipsy-doodle day Monday, as tech issues surmounted weakness in golds and other metals to bring the index into positive country by the close.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index surged 60.11 points to close Monday at 17,906.02.

The Canadian dollar swooned 0.12 cents to 78.46 cents U.S.

Tech stocks proved the stars Monday, with BlackBerry springing $5.07, or 28.4%, to $22.93, while Kinaxis prospered $3.58, or 2%, to $185.19.

In industrials, TFI International spread its wings $20.90, or 32.1%, to $85.99, while New Flyer Industrials acquired $1.54, or 5.1%, to $31.86.

Communications scored big, too, as Cogeco Communications towered $1.88, or 1.8%, to $107.68, while Rogers picked up 89 cents, or 1.5%, to $62.40.

On the other side, golds went downhill, as Eldorado Gold docked 44 cents, or 3.1%, to $13.73, while NovaGold skidded 14 cents, or 1.2%, to $11.40.

In other resource stocks, Hudbay Minerals skidded 64 cents, or 7.5%, to $7.95, while Fortuna Silver Mines fell 35 cents, or 3.9%, to $8.75.

In the health-care field, Cronos Group subsided 88 cents, or 6.5%, to $12.67, while Aphria lost $1.19, or 7.2%, to $15.28.

ON BAYSTREET

The TSX Venture Exchange eked higher 7.07 points, to end the session at 954.50

Seven of the 12 TSX subgroups were lower, weighed most by gold, down 0.9%, materials, losing 0.7%, and health-care, ailing 0.5%.

The five gainers were led by information technology, ahead 1.4%, industrials, better by 1.3%, and communications, up 1.1%.

ON WALLSTREET

The S&P 500 edged higher in volatile trading on Monday as investors prepared for a busy week of earnings featuring reports from the largest tech companies.

The Dow Jones Industrials came off its lows of the afternoon, but finished down 36.62 points to 30,960.26

The S&P 500 regained 13.87 points to 3,885.34

The NASDAQ recovered from midday gullies and added 92.93 points to Friday’s all-time high to finish Monday at 13,635.99.

This coming week 13 Dow components and 111 S&P 500 companies are set to report earnings. Among the quarterly reports on deck include those from Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Tesla, McDonald’s, Honeywell, Caterpillar and Boeing.

Apple shares gained 2.6% to about $140 a share before its quarterly report Wednesday after the bell. Tesla, which also reports Wednesday, was up 2.6%.

Highly speculative action in stocks like GameStop was unnerving some investors, causing worry that parts of the market had detached from fundamentals and could cause the broader market to take a hit when the mania ends.

Shares of the brick-and-mortar video-game retailer soared more than 140% to top $150 at one point Monday as a slew of retail investors active in online chat rooms aimed to squeeze out short sellers. Other heavily shorted names, including Bed Bath & Beyond, also jumped higher on Monday amid the buying frenzy.

Companies kicked off the earnings season on a strong note. Of the S&P 500 components that have already reported earnings, 73% have beaten on both sales and EPS, according to data from Bank of America. One expert said this is tracking similar to last quarter when the number of companies beating hit a record.

Prices for the 10-Year Treasury were higher, weighing on yields to 1.04% from at Friday’s 1.09%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.

Oil prices gained 51 cents to $52.78 U.S. a barrel.

Gold prices slipped $1.80 to $1,854.40 U.S. an ounce.