The Toronto stock market was higher by noon Thursday as the latest jobs data from the U.S. showed a slight gain and oil prices also moved higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index moved towards noon Thursday ahead 57.03 points to 12,416.50
The Canadian dollar gained 0.55 cents to 101.79 cents U.S.
BMO and UBS upgraded their ratings on Enbridge Inc.after the Canadian pipeline company boosted its EPS-growth target two percentage points to at least 12% at its Investor Day conference Wednesday. BMO upgraded to outperform, while UBS hiked to buy.
Shares in Enbridge galloped more than 2% to $40.19
Argent Energy Trust said it has agreed to buy producing petroleum properties in Texas and Southern Oklahoma for $132.5 million U.S.
To help fund the purchase, Argent said it plans to sell 11 million units at $10 each, for proceeds of $110 million. Argent units fell 45 cents, or 4.3%, to $10.14
TD bumped up its target price on Air Canada by one to three dollars, citing "several" positive developments at the airline, including a favorable arbitration ruling Wednesday in its dispute with regional partner Chorus Aviation parent of Jazz Air. TD also said Air Canada's September traffic results, released late Wednesday, were strong, and its stock gained six cents to $1.47.
Whitecap Resources said it has achieved record production of 16,900 barrels of oil equivalent a day for September, up 25% from the second quarter and up 153% from a year earlier. Whitecap shares ballooned 52 cents, or 7.1%, to $7.87 by noon.
On the economic watch, the pace of purchasing activity in the Canadian economy slowed in September, according to Ivey Purchasing Managers Index data released today, but still beat expectations.
The data showed the seasonally-adjusted index slipped to 60.4 in September from 62.5 in August. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a reading of 59. The Ivey PMI is published out of a think-tank based in London, Ontario’s Western University.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange improved 7.08 points to 1,332.50
All but three of 14 Toronto subgroups were up at the outset, led by gold, gaining 1.2%, materials, strengthening 1.1%, and the metals and mining group, picking up 0.8%.
The three laggards were real-estate, information technology and health-care, all down less than 0.1% each.
ON WALLSTREET
Bank stocks led markets higher on Wall Street Thursday after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi reiterated the central bank's commitment to its new bond-buying plan.
The Dow Jones Industrial average prospered 82.11 points to break for lunch at 13,576.70
The S&P 500 took on 7.04 points to 1,458.03, while the tech-rich Nasdaq gained 5.83 points to 3,141.06
Citigroup, Bank of America JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley all surged more than 2%.
Investors grew more bullish on the banking sector after Moody's said Regions Financial and Zions Bancorp, two large regional banks, were being reviewed for potential upgrades.
Wall Street trading desks were also abuzz with talk of Wednesday night's presidential debate. Some traders said investors appeared energized by what they saw as a win by Republican hopeful Mitt Romney, who some deem more market-friendly.
The apparent results of the debate fueled a drop in hospital stocks Thursday, as Romney talked about repealing Obama's healthcare plan. Tenet Healthcare, HCA Holdings and Health Management Associates all traded down more than 3%, while health insurers Cigna, UnitedHealth Group and Humana were all up more than 1%.
Google finally reached a settlement with the Association of American Publishers, which ends a seven-year litigation battle over the search engine's digitization of publishers' books. The stock moved up slightly on the news.
Shares of Sprint and MetroPCS dropped after Bloomberg reported that Sprint could make a rival bid to block a T-Mobile, MetroPCS merger announced yesterday.
Shares of software company Informatica dropped more than 20% after the company revised its third-quarter outlook down. Competitors Red Hat, SAP and CA Technologies also dipped.
Investors will also be keeping a wary eye on ECB boss Mario Draghi, who recently said he'd do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. Draghi stood by that decision during a talk this morning.
ECB officials kept rates at 0.75% when they met in Slovenia Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Bank of England left its key interest rate unchanged at 0.5%, where it's been since early 2009.
In the domestic economic docket, the U.S. Labor Department reported that the number of people filing for first-time unemployment
claims rose by 4,000 to 367,000 for the week ended Sept. 29. That was slightly higher than expected.
Ahead of that report, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said U.S.-based employers announced plans to cut 33,816 jobs in September, down 71% from a year earlier.
This afternoon, the U.S. Federal Reserve will release minutes for its most recent policy making meeting, in which it announced the latest round of quantitative easing or QE3. The report could shed light on the Fed's open-ended program of buying $40 billion U.S. in mortgage debt every month.
The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury slid, raising yields to 1.64% from Wednesday’s 1.62%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices leaped $1.31 to $89.42 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices leaped $14.00 to $1,793.80 U.S. an ounce.
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