Stocks in Canada’s biggest market leaped on Friday, as a rebound in oil prices drove energy stocks higher and major lenders posted robust gains.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index jumped 171.05 points, or 1.1%, to greet noon at 15,567.75
The Canadian dollar recovered 0.3 cents at 73.02 cents U.S.
The most influential movers on the index included Bank of Nova Scotia, which rose 2.2% to $76.82, and Tourmaline Oil, which added 5.9% to $27.59 after the energy company reported strong quarterly earnings on Thursday.
Financials gained as Home Capital Group, Canada's biggest non-bank mortgage lender, climbed 4% to $6.25 after it announced that Alan Hibbens would replace co-founder Gerald Soloway on its board.
Soloway had been accused by regulators of making "materially misleading statements" to investors, and on Thursday its shares slumped more than 12% on a regulatory hearing to investigate the matter.
Suncor Energy ticked up 1.7% to $42.47, while TransCanada Corp, which reported better-than-expected first-quarter results, rose 1.5% to $63.60. Encana Corp added 3% to $14.75.
In the economic docket, Statistics Canada reported Friday morning that employment was little changed in April, while the unemployment rate declined 0.2 percentage points to 6.5%, the lowest rate since October 2008.
The agency attributed the decrease mostly to fewer young people searching for work.
Western University’s IVEY School of Business came out with another positive Purchasing Managers Index for April. The index jumped last month to 62.4, compared to 61.1 in March and 53.1 in April 2016.
The survey of purchasing managers asks them if their purchases increased, decreased or stayed the same during the month. Any reading over 50 signals expansion; below 50, contraction.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange hiked 2.82 points to 776.89
All but one of 12 TSX subgroups grew by noon ET, as gold soared 2.5%, energy gushed 2.3%, and materials hiked 1.9%.
Only health-care missed the party, down 0.2%
ON WALLSTREET
The Dow Jones industrial average struggled to keep pace with the S&P 500 and NASDAQ composite as a fall in IBM's stock put a lid on the index.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average came to within 0.96 points of breakeven to 20.950.51
The S&P 500 gained 3.76 points to 2,393.16
The NASDAQ gained 7.6 points to 6,082.67, within striking distance of its all-time intraday high.
IBM shares fell more than 2% on Friday and contributed the most losses on the Dow after Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett sold a third of his IBM stake, or 81 million shares.
Companies reporting earnings Friday included E.W. Scripps Company, Louisiana-Pacific and VWR Corporation
The U.S. economy added 211,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate fell to 4.4%. Economists expected jobs growth of 185,000 and for the unemployment rate to hit 4.5%.
Average hourly wages, meanwhile, rose 0.3%.
Prices for the benchmark 10-year Treasury note recovered, lowering yields back to Thursday’s 2.35%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices gathered 92 cents at $46.44 U.S. a barrel
Gold prices were gained $1.40 at $1,230.00 U.S. an ounce.
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