Stocks in Canada’s largest market doggedly remained higher as the clock approached noon ET on Wednesday, helped by rising energy and industrial stocks, with construction company SNC-Lavalin jumping after winning an oil sands service contract.
The S&P/TSX Composite remained buoyant 11.11 points to greet noon at 15,304.07
The Canadian dollar eked up 0.03 cents to 74.63 cents U.S.
SNC-Lavalin rose 3.9% to $59.36. It said its subsidiary is part of a joint venture that won a five-year deal to supply engineering and procurement services to an unnamed "prominent integrated oil company" in the Athabasca region in Alberta.
Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd advanced 1.9% to $647, while the broader financial sector slipped.
The world's largest gold producer, Barrick Gold, fell 1.9% to $18.80. TD Securities cut its call on the stock to hold from buy and lowered its price target to $18.00 from $25.00.
Label and packaging maker CCL Industries Inc pulled back 1.5% to $267.10, a day after it jumped sharply on news it planned to buy Innovia Group, which supplies the new U.K. plastic five pound note that has fallen foul of vegetarians, for around $1.13 billion.
Telecom company BCE Inc advanced 0.5% to $57.68 a day after the CRTC granted the first of three approvals needed for it to complete its acquisition of Manitoba Telecom Service Inc.
BlackBerry Ltd fell 1.6% to $9.86, extending losses after reported better-than-expected adjusted earnings and raising its full-year growth forecast, as doubts about its long-term growth outlook weighed
On the economic beat, Statistics Canada reported that average weekly earnings among Canadians were $954.00 in October, down 0.1% from the previous month and unchanged from 12 months earlier.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange finally broke out of its funk, gaining 1.72 points to 718.59
Seven of the 12 TSX subgroups were lower midday, as health-care ailed 0.8%, information technology clicked 0.5% lower, and materials slid 0.3%.
The five gainers were led by industrial concerns, marching ahead 0.9%, while real-estate and gold each improved 0.3%.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. equities traded slightly lower on Wednesday, with health-care lagging, as investors waited for the Dow Jones industrial average to reach 20,000 for the first time.
The Dow backed away from Tuesday’s record highs, docking 12.96 points by noon hour to 19,961.66, with Merck leading decliners and Nike the biggest riser.
The S&P 500 lost 1.78 points to 2,268.98, with health-care leading five sectors lower and energy the top advancer.
The NASDAQ composite index subtracted 8.15 points to 5,475.80
In corporate news, Twitter's CTO Adam Messinger announced is leaving the company after five years. Meanwhile, Amazon was hit by a strike at its German warehouses in a dispute over pay and working conditions. The strike is scheduled to run until Dec. 24.
The only major economic data due Wednesday were existing home sales for November, which hit 5.61 million units, and weekly mortgage applications, which rose 2.5%.
Treasury prices for the 10-year note inched forward, lowering yields to 2.54% from Tuesday’s 2.56%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices sank 48 cents to $52.82 U.S. a barrel
Gold prices dropped 80 cents to $1,132.80 U.S. an ounce.
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