Canadian stocks have remained slightly in positive territory on Tuesday, led by strength in the mining and materials sectors.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index added 21.18 points to 11,888.08.
Mining stocks are up, as First Quantum has gained 1.3% at $83.25 and Teck Resources is up 2.5% at $40.
Materials stocks have gained, as Potash added 5.4% to $123 after being upgraded to "outperform" from "neutral" at Credit Suisse. Rival Agrium was up 3.1% to $67.55.
The Utility Index has dropped, as Canadian Utilities has declined 1.9% to $42.66 and Emera dropped 1.6% at $24.60.
In other corporate news, Research in Motion slipped 0.7% to $68.27 amid choppy trading. Morgan Stanley initiated coverage of the stock with an "overweight" rating.
Meanwhile, Wesdome Gold Mines announced that its Board has appointed Donovan Pollitt, Vice President, Corporate Development, as President and Chief Executive Officer. The stock was down 0.8% at $2.38.
Revett Minerals slipped a penny to 34 cents after the company announced that Silver Wheaton Corp. has subscribed for additional shares in the company to bring its shareholdings back to 16.6% of issued and outstanding shares of Revett.
Trinidad Drilling has gained 7.6% to $7.75 after announcing it will resume the construction of six new drilling rigs.
Reitmans slipped 0.4% to $15.69 despite reporting that its December sales for the five weeks ended January 2, 2010 increased 4.2%. Same store sales increased 3.1%.
The Canadian dollar tailed off 0.06 cents to 96.20 cents U.S.
ON BAYSTREET
Of the 14 TSX subgroups, eight were higher to end the day. Materials led the charge, up 1.8%, followed by metals and mining, ahead 1.5%, and global base metals, advancing 1.2%.
The half-dozen laggards were weighed mostly by information technology, off 1%, telecoms, down 0.8%, and utilities, sliding 0.7%.
The TSX Venture Exchange advanced 7.39 points to 1,551.32, while the Nasdaq Canada index moved forward 3.64 points to 729.20.
ON WALLSTREET
In New York, stocks struggled Tuesday as investors weighed a seesawing dollar, a slew of auto sales and reports on pending home sale and factory orders.
The Dow Jones Industrials Index was off its lows of the day, but still finished in the red 11.94 points, to 10,572.02. The broader S&P 500 was up 3.53 points to 1,136.52, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq peeked upward 0.29 points to 2,308.71.
After pushing the major gauges to fresh 15-month highs Monday, investors struggled Tuesday.
A weak dollar initially gave a push to dollar-traded commodities and select stocks that do business overseas. But the dollar turned mixed by the late afternoon, diluting the impact.
A late-session advance in the influential banking sector helped the market find its footing late in the session, with the KBW Bank sector index adding 2%, thanks to strength in components such as JPMorgan Chase and Capital One Financial.
Investors are also showing some caution after a tumultuous, but strong year on Wall Street, in which the broad S&P 500 managed to gain over 23%, despite touching a more than 12-year low in March.
Between that March 9 low point and year end, the S&P 500 gained 65%.
The Dow component has sweetened its $16.4-billion U.S. hostile takeover offer for British chocolate maker Cadbury, providing a partial cash-alternative to its already announced deal.
The funding will come from Kraft's sale of its frozen pizza business to Swiss food company Nestle for $3.7 billion U.S. in cash, a deal announced early Tuesday. Nestle has also said it won't bid for Cadbury.
But Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate run by influential investor Warren Buffett and Kraft's largest shareholder, said it is voting "no" on Kraft's request to issue as many as 370 million shares to help finance the bid for Cadbury. Berkshire said that allowing this would essentially be giving Kraft a blank check.
Kraft extended its deadline for the Cadbury offer to Feb. 2. Kraft shares rallied 3.4%.
Google released its Nexus One smartphone Tuesday, the first mobile device entirely designed by the company. Previously, Google had designed mobile software such as Google Maps and also released its Android operating system.
Also, Apple said Tuesday the number of iPhone applications downloaded from its App store has topped 3 billion. Late Monday, a Wall Street Journal report said that Apple will ship its much-anticipated Tablet in March, following a January unveiling.
Automakers reported improved December sales at the end of the worst year in decades.
Ford Motor's U.S. sales jumped 34% in December versus a year ago and over 50% versus the previous month. But Ford's sales for the full year fell 15%.
Rival General Motors said sales fell 6% in December versus a year ago, but that sales rose 38% from November. For the full year, GM said sales fell 30%.
Among other companies reporting, Chrysler said that sales in December fell 4% versus a year ago and up 36% from November. Chrysler also dropped 36% for the year and sold less than a million vehicles, its worst year since the early 1960s.
Economically speaking, homebuyers signed 16% fewer sales contracts in November than in December, according to a National Association of Realtors (NAR) report released in the morning.
Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected the report to show that pending home sales fell 2% in November after rising for nine straight months. Still, sales were up 15.5% from November 2008.
The November setback reflected the near-expiration of the government's first-time homebuyers’ tax credit. Buyers jumped in when the credit was expected to expire on Nov. 30. But once it was announced that it was being extended through June, the buying frenzy lost momentum.
Another report showed that factory orders increased by 1.1% in November after climbing 0.8% in October. Economists thought orders would grow by 0.5%.
A third report showed that severe unemployment worsened in big cities in November. The government reported that 17 of 372 metropolitan areas surveyed had unemployment rates of at least 15% in November, up from 15 such areas in October.
Treasury prices gained, lowering yields on the benchmark 10-year note to 3.75% from Monday’s 3.82%. Prices and yields move in opposite directions.
The price of a barrel of oil was 41 cents higher to $81.92 U.S.
Gold prices ended unchanged at $1,119 an ounce U.S.
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