The Toronto stock market grew unexpectedly Wednesday, on the unveiling of a new product by BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. and despite data showing a surprising weakening of the American economy in the fourth quarter.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index gained 48.30 points to start Wednesday’s trading at 12,878.86
The Canadian dollar backtracked 0.37 cents to 99.52 cents U.S.
RIM shares galloped 2.8% to $16.15 in the first hour, on the long-awaited release of its BlackBerry smartphones.
Label and specialty packages maker CCL Industries Inc. said it would buy two businesses of U.S. label and office supplies maker Avery Dennison Corp for $500 million. CCL shares were unchanged at $45.25.
Gold stocks also shone, with Banro Corp. leading the charge, up 5.1% to $2.47.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange moved up 3.58 points to 1,235.50
All but two of the 14 Toronto subgroups gained ground, led by information technology stocks, up 2.4%, gold, strengthening 1.4%, and materials, picking up 1.2%.
The two laggards were industrials, off 0.3%, and utilities, down 0.05%.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stocks were mixed at the open Wednesday, after a government report showed that the U.S. economy contracted during the fourth quarter of 2012.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average sifted off 14.09 points to 13,940.30
The S&P 500 nipped up 1.28 points to 1,509.12. The tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite added 0.89 points to 3,154.55, helped by a 6% jump in Amazon, which reported a 22% jump in fourth-quarter sales late Tuesday.
Research in Motion was also a big winner on the tech-heavy index. Investors are gearing up fro the long-awaited launch of BlackBerry 10, which the ailing RIM hopes will change its fortunes in the smartphone market.
U.S. stocks closed higher Tuesday, pushing the Dow and the S&P 500 closer to new all-time highs. The Dow is less than 2% away from its all-time high of 14,198.10 reached in October 2007, while the S&P 500 is less than 5% away from its record high of 1,576.09, also reached in October 2007.
Also in corporate news, Boeing, which has been dogged over the past few weeks by problems with its now-grounded 787 Dreamliner fleet, topped fourth-quarter earnings forecasts. The aircraft maker says it does not expect a significant financial impact from the grounding of the 787s. Shares of Boeing edged higher.
Oil producer Phillips 66 shares rose after the company's beat earnings expectations.
Facebook headlines the list of firms reporting after the close.
Shares of Chesapeake Energy surged 10% after the natural-gas producer announced that embattled CEO Aubrey McClendon will retire in April.
On the economic front, U.S. gross domestic product declined 0.1% last quarter, marking the first year-over-year contraction since the second quarter of 2009. The drop, largely due to a 22% decline in defense spending, was a big surprise, as analysts were expecting that the economy grew 1% last quarter, according to a consensus estimate of economists
Meanwhile, payroll processor ADP said private employers added 192,000 jobs in January, higher than the 175,000 jobs that analysts were expecting. The ADP report is the first of three this week to provide a snapshot of nation's job market.
In the afternoon, the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee will release a statement upon the conclusion of its latest meeting, which investors will scrutinize for clues about when the central bank's bond-buying program will end.
Minutes from the Fed's December meeting showed that some members were weighing whether the central bank should wrap up the program, known as QE3, before the end of this year.
Prices on the 10-year U.S. Treasury fell, raising yields to 2.02% from Tuesday’s 1.99%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices grew 19 cents to $97.76 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices ballooned $15.60 to $1,676.40 U.S. an ounce.
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