Bay Street moved slightly higher on Friday, paring some of the losses from the previous two sessions. A strong day in the mining sector led the market to the upside.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index added 42.10 points to close out a short week at 10,288.01. Traffic was lighter than usual with American markets quiet for a holiday.
Mining stocks were up as Teck Resources surged 8.1% to $19.99. The company announced that China Investment Corporation has agreed to purchase through a wholly-owned subsidiary 101.3 million Class B subordinate voting shares of Teck for $17.21 per share.
Ivanhoe jumped 5.9% to $8.47 and FNX Mining has gained 1.8% to $7.99.
Energy stocks were down as crude oil continued its recent slump in electronic trading. Baytex dropped 1.3% to $19.00 and Suncor was down 0.9% to $32.87.
On the corporate front, Petro Andina Resources lost 1.4% to $9.07 after its board has urged shareholders to reject a $400-million takeover offer from Pluspetrol Resources.
Nova Chemicals gained just above 1% to $6.95 after the company said all regulatory approvals required to complete its sale to International Petroleum Investment have been received. IPIC will pay $6.00 U.S. in cash for each of the issued and outstanding common shares of Nova.
Also on Friday, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said he expects unemployment to continue to climb in 2010 despite economic recovery, according to The Canadian Press.
Canadian markets were off for the Canada Day holiday on Wednesday.
The Canadian dollar was down 0.02 cents to 86.07 cents U.S.
ON BAYSTREET
All but three the 14 TSX subgroups ended the day positive. Metals and mining led the way, up 2.7%, real-estate and materials stocks were each up 0.9%.
The three laggards were energy, off a mere 0.4%, utilities and consumer staples were both less than 0.1% down.
The TSX Venture Exchange was up 0.38 points, to 1,092.96, while the Nasdaq Canada Index down 4.15 points to 679.89.
ON WALLSTREET
All financial markets for the Independence Day holiday
