Canada's main stock index rose on Friday and was still on track for an 0.8% gain in a week of all-time highs, as financial stocks and some resource firms gained.
The S&P/TSX composite index grew 60.59 points, to close out Friday and the week at 15,455.04
The Canadian dollar faded 0.62 cents at 92.45 cents U.S.
Some of Canada's biggest banks led the way on Friday, with Toronto-Dominion Bank up 1% to $56.52, Royal Bank of Canada gaining 0.7% to $79.89, and Bank of Nova Scotia adding 0.3%, to $73.53.
Shares in TransForce jumped 10.5% to $27.82 after the transportation and logistics company said late on Thursday it planned to buy freight transport company Contrans Group for $495 million. Contrans stock gained 3.5% to $15.25.
Among resource stocks, Potash Corp gained 1.3% to $39.42 on evidence that fertilizer demand was improving.
Gold stocks shone brightly, as Argonaut Gold jumped 5.1% to $4.09, and B2Gold hiked 5.5% to $3.00.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange gained 5.79 points to 1,017.44.
All but four of the 14 Toronto subgroups were stronger on the day, most notably gold, up 3.3%, materials, surging 2.1%, and consumer staples, ahead 1%.
The four laggards were weighed most by telecoms, off 0.9%, energy, down 0.4%, and metals and mining, off 0.2%.
ON WALLSTREET
Stocks fell broadly on Friday, bringing the S&P 500 back from the threshold of 2,000.
The Dow Jones Industrials plummeted 123.23 points to close Friday at 16,960.57. Visa, which has the biggest weighting in the Dow, dragged down the blue chips with its 4% drop.
The S&P 500 dropped 9.64 points to 1,978.34. The NASDAQ composite slipped 22.55 points to 4,449.56, largely due to a more than 10% drop in Amazon following its latest earnings.
Despite Friday's drop, it wasn't that bad of a week. The NASDAQ is up about 0.4% this week and the S&P 500 is up slightly. The Dow is lower, though.
Amazon's sales jumped more than 20% but it also reported a $123-million U.S. loss. Some investors may be growing tired of Amazon's long history of quarters where it loses more than expected due to big investments.
The company has been spending a lot this quarter, unveiling products and services like the Fire TV, Fire Phone and Sunday delivery, but it seems that's not enough to keep some investors around until next quarter.
Today's the first day of trading for El Pollo Loco, whose shares priced at $15 U.S. per share, the higher end of its IPO range. The stock is up around 52% heading into the close.
The company has a lot of debt and isn't exactly Chipotle, but it has ambitious expansion plans and healthy IPO market behind it.
A few other companies debuted today, but none had El Pollo Loco's spark: Orion Engineered Carbons and Ocular Therapeutix shares were down slightly.Innocoll and Advanced Drainage Systems rose modestly.
Cynk Technology, the mysterious social network with no earnings, revenue or even assets, is once again trading after the SEC suspended trading two weeks ago following a from-nowhere 25,000% price increase. The stock was down more than 85%.
21st Century Fox merged its BSkyB cable assets in Germany and Italy with BSkyB in England, freeing up $8.3-billion U.S. in cash.
The market thinks that the money might be put to use to help Rupert Murdoch's Fox make a higher bid for Time Warner, which Fox has sought to buy for $80 billion U.S. Time Warner turned down the offer. Fox shares were flat and Time Warner shares were up 1.4%.
Several other stocks caught up in merger speculation were on the move as well. After rumours of a potential tie-up between Zillow and Trulia began swirling yesterday, both stocks surged. The rally continued Friday with Zillow up 7% and Trulia 2% higher.
SodaStream, which soared Thursday on reports it may look to go private, wasn't so lucky. The stock fell more than 1%.
Visa had one of the worst days in the S&P 500 behind Amazon. It had a great quarter that exceeded expectations and even spurred a number of price target upgrades from analysts. But it lowered its revenue growth forecast, and it's getting punished.
Rival MasterCard, whose earnings come out in a week, was down 2.1%.
Starbucks also reported a good quarter. But its shares were down 2%.
Prices for 10-year U.S. Treasuries gained ground, lowering yields to 2.47% from Thursday’s 2.51%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices fell 11 cents to $101.96 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices jumped $17.20 to $1,290.80 U.S. an ounce.
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