Stocks started the week on the march in Canada’s biggest centre, as commodity prices edged higher, giving materials and energy stocks a boost.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index gained 57.76 points to open for business Monday at 16,097.92
The Canadian dollar weakened 0.08 cents to 78.27 cents U.S.
A unit of Brookfield Asset Management said it is evaluating a number of telecom tower portfolios in India to scale its presence after talks to acquire over 40,000 towers from debt-laden Reliance Communications hit a snag.
Brookfield gained 23 cents to $53.45.
CIBC cuts the rating on Brookfield Renewable Partners LP to neutral from outperformer. Brookfield Renewable units dropped two cents to $42.76.
Barclays cut the rating on Imperial Oil to underweight from overweight. Shares in IMO took on 32 cents to $40.14.
Cantor Fitzgerald started coverage on Prometic Life Sciences with overweight rating. Prometic shares lost two cents, or 1.4%, to $1.39.
Barclays raised the price target on Whitecap Resources to $11.00 from $10.00. Whitecap shares hiked 16 cents, or 1.7%, to $9.70.
On the economic slate, Western University’s IVEY School of Business said its Purchasing Managers’ Index leaped in October to 63.8, compared to 59.6 in September, and 59.7 in October. The index solicits information from purchasing managers of businesses and asks whether their purchases improved, fell, or stayed static, and any reading over 50 indicates expansion.
The federal government's plan to legalize recreational marijuana by next July could be in jeopardy, with opposition brewing among some in the Senate and concerns that the deadline to pass the bill is rapidly approaching.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange regained 4.04 points to 796.02
All but two of the 12 TSX subgroups were higher, health-care haler by 2.5%, energy up 1.4% and materials stronger 0.6%.
The lone naysayers were in telecoms and consumer discretionaries, each down 0.2%.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. equities hit record highs on Monday after Broadcom made a $130-billion offer to buy Qualcomm.
The Dow Jones industrial average added 19.55 points to Friday’s record high to 23,558.74
The S&P 500 moved higher 2.24 points to 2,590.08, another all-time peak
The NASDAQ perked 20.76 points to 6,785.20, an all-time high.
Broadcom offered to buy fellow chip maker Qualcomm for $70 a share. If completed, the deal would be the biggest in the history of the tech sector. Reports of a potential bid first surfaced on Friday.
Qualcomm rose 5.1% while Broadcom gained 2.7%
The proposed deal comes after President Donald Trump said last week that Broadcom would move its headquarters to the U.S. from Singapore. However, Qualcomm is expected to resist the offer.
Elsewhere, shares of Advanced Micro Devices jumped on a report that the company will team up with Intel to compete with Nvidia in the laptop gaming chip market.
AMD traded 5.9% higher. Intel rose 0.5% while Nvidia shares slipped 0.3%
Earnings season moved forward on Monday, with CVS Health, Michael Kors and Mylan among the companies that reported before the bell.
Overall, it has been a very solid earnings season. Analysts at Credit Suisse said in a note that earnings are beating estimates by 6.1%, with 70% of S&P 500 companies topping bottom-line estimates.
Prices for the benchmark 10-year Treasury note stayed static, keeping yields at Friday’s 2.33%.
Oil prices notched up 21 cents a barrel to $55.85 U.S.
Gold prices improved $3.50 an ounce to $1,272.70 U.S.
