Markets in Toronto rose on Friday to a four-month high as financial shares climbed, while Bombardier Inc got a boost after sealing a deal to sell up to 50 Q400 turboprop planes to India's SpiceJet SPJT.BO.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index jumped 26.78 points to open the quarter’s last session at 15,645.03
The Canadian dollar settled 0.21 cents to 80.22 cents U.S
Bombardier, for its part, took on six cents a share, or 2.7%, to $2.27.
Dave McKay, the CEO of Royal Bank of Canada, on Thursday pushed back on a suggestion by JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon that bitcoin is a fraud, though he said the cryptocurrency needs monitoring.
Shares in the country’s largest bank gained 56 cents to $96.49.
RBC raised the target price on Blackberry to $10.50 from $9.50. BlackBerry kept on the march, stock price-wise, gaining 40 cents, or 3.1%, to $13.40.
Canaccord Genuity raised the target price on Sandstorm Gold to $10 from $9.50. Sandstorm Gold shares were unchanged in the first hour of trading at $5.65.
On the economic calendar, Statistics Canada reported the economy was essentially unchanged in July as 11 of 20 industrial sectors grew.
The agency’s industrial product price index rose 0.3% in August, mainly due to higher prices for energy and petroleum products.
The Raw Materials Price Index increased 1.0%, primarily due to higher prices for crude energy products.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange gained 2.26 points to 778.38
All but three of the 12 TSX subgroups were positive to begin Friday, with health-care improving 0.9%, information technology up 0.5% and financials climbing 0.4%.
The two laggards were materials, down 0.07%, and utilities, doffing 0.03%.
Consumer staples shares were unchanged early on.
ON WALLSTREET
The S&P 500 climbed to a record Friday, helped by gains in technology stocks on the last trading day of the quarter.
The Dow Jones Industrials dwindled 20.6 points to 22,360.60. United Technologies and Boeing were among the greatest contributors to declines in the Dow, while Johnson & Johnson was among the greatest contributors to gains in the index.
The S&P 500 picked up 0.83 points to 2,510.89, with information technology leading advancers and telecommunications leading decliners.
The NASDAQ added 11.99 points to 6,465.44.
As of Thursday's close, the Dow was on track for third quarter gains of 4.8%, its eighth straight quarter of gains for the first time since 1997.
The S&P 500 was on pace for quarterly gains of nearly 3.6%, also its eighth straight quarter of gains. The NASDAQ was tracking for quarterly gains of 5.1%, its fifth straight positive quarter since 2015
In economic news, the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation posted its slowest pace of annual increase since November 2015.
The personal consumption expenditures index, excluding food and energy, rose 1.3% in the 12 months through August, according to the Department of Commerce.
The Chicago Purchasing Managers Index unexpectedly rose to 65.2 in September. The final read on consumer sentiment from the University of Michigan showed a slight decline from to 95.1 in September from 96.8 in August.
Prices for the benchmark 10-year Treasury note slumped, giving a slight lift to yields to 2.33% from Thursday’s 2.31%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices dropped 12 cents a barrel to $51.44 U.S.
Gold prices fell $2.20 to $1,286.50 U.S. an ounce
