The Toronto stock market remained positive by noon ET Thursday, as job creation in the United States came in much higher than expected.
The S&P/TSX composite index gained 34.35 points to greet noon at 15,244.14
The Canadian dollar recovered 0.28 cents to 94.04 cents U.S.
Financials climbed as Royal Bank of Canada added 0.7% to $77.53, and Bank of Nova Scotia gained 0.8% to $71.89.
The telecoms sector was up, with BCE rising 0.8% to $48.57 and Telus Corp
advancing 0.6% to $39.73.
But gold-mining shares gave back strength, as Goldcorp slipped 1.7% to $29.25, and Barrick Gold lost 0.9% to $19.40.
Statistics Canada reported this morning that our merchandise exports advanced 3.5%, while imports grew 1.6% in May. As a result, Canada's trade deficit with the world narrowed from $961 million in April to $152 million in May.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange fell 0.85 points to 1,035.22.
The 14 Toronto subgroups were evenly divided between gainers and losers, as metals and mining powered ahead 3%, while global base metals took on 1.7%, and financials gained 0.7%.
The seven laggards were weighed mostly by gold stocks, down 1.2%, information technology lost 0.6%, and real-estate settled 0.5%
ON WALLSTREET
After a whole week of gingerly tiptoeing to the line, the blue chips finally crossed the 17,000 mark.
The Dow picked up 96.27 points to greet noon hour at 17.072.51, an all-time high.
The S&P 500 gathered 10.13 points to 1,984.75, and the NASDAQ composite sprang up 26.20 points to 4,483.93.
U.S. markets will close early today ahead of the July 4 holiday weekend. So far Hurricane Arthur does not seem to be impacting stocks.
PetSmart shares are howling at the moon, up more than 12% after hedge fund Jana Partners announced a 9.9% stake with intentions of exploring a sale of the company.
In other moves, embattled clothing retailers American Apparel and Lululemon are trading higher. Shares in the two are up 5% and almost 2.5%, respectively.
There's a lot of news around American Apparel, where Reuters reports that former CEO Dov Charney has handed off his stake to hedge fund Standard General. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that former Lululemon chair and founder Chip Wilson is trying to take the company private.
Intel shares are up 20% so far this year, making it the second best performing stock in the Dow.
Nathan's Famous hot dogs, sponsor of Coney Island's annual July 4 hot dog-eating contest in New York, is a publicly traded company. The stock is down slightly in trading today, but it's up over 7% so far this year
A strong June job reports drove the optimism in the stock market. The U.S. economy added 288,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate fell to 6.1%, down from 6.3% in May. That was much better than economists or Wall Street expected.
Prices for 10-year U.S. Treasuries slumped, raising yields to 2.65% from Wednesday’s 2.63%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices demurred 68 cents to $103.80 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices moved down $11.10 to $1,319.80 U.S. an ounce.
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