The Toronto stock market was higher Monday as traders picked up beaten-down gold stocks while bullion prices had their biggest one day move upward in more than a year.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index ended Monday up 73.25 points to 12,758.38
The Canadian dollar gained 0.25 cents to 96.73 cents U.S.
In Canada, traders will take in earnings from Canadian National Railway after the close while Canadian Pacific reports Wednesday.
Analysts expect CN to post earnings per share of $1.63, up from $1.44 a year earlier.
CN is expected to report that earnings ex-items came in at $1.62, up from $1.50 a year ago. Revenue is expected to come in at $2.7 billion, rising from $2.54 billion a year ago. In Monday trading, CN shares shed early gains and slipped 49 cents to $105.06. CP, for its part, fell $1.10 to $132.62.
The TSX global gold sector is still down 41% year to date, but it earlier had been down about 50%, while the price of bullion is only down 23% so far in 2013.
On Monday, Barrick Gold Corp. ran up $1.09 to $18.25 while Goldcorp Inc. improved by $1.63 to $29.97.
The base metals sector was ahead while September copper was up five cents to $3.19 U.S. a pound. Teck Resources gained 49 cents to $23.97. Teck is the biggest Canadian mining company to report this week and analysts forecast the Vancouver-based company will post adjusted earnings of 33 cents a share on Thursday, down from 53 cents a year ago.
The energy sector was up while Cenovus Energy, which reports earnings Wednesday, climbed 23 cents to $32.48.
The telecom sector declined as BCE Inc. was 99 cents lower to $42.30 while Rogers Communications fell 93 cents to $41.15. Rogers posts its quarterly earnings on Wednesday.
In other resource sector earnings, gold miner Agnico-Eagle Mines and gas giant Encana report on Wednesday, while Husky Energy will post its results Thursday.
Outside of the resource sectors, grocer Loblaw Cos. reports results Wednesday. Loblaw faded 59 cents Monday to $47.80.
In other corporate news, Intact Financial Corp. says several recent Canadian disasters, including flooding in Alberta, the Lac-Megantic train derailment and a heavy rain storm in the Toronto area, will result in more than $270 million of losses in its second and third quarter.
The Toronto-based company is one of Canada's largest property insurers. Its shares gained $1.85 to $59.38.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange added 8.99 points to finish Monday at 929.38
All but four of the 14 Toronto subgroups were higher by the day’s end, led by gold, up 6.5%, materials, ahead 3.8%, and the metals and mining group, up 1.5%.
The four laggards were weighed mostly by telecoms, down 2%, real-estate, fading 0.8%, and information technology, sliding 0.3%
ON WALLSTREET
Investors were taking a wait-and-see approach Monday as the corporate earnings season gets underway in earnest this week.
The Dow Jones Industrials inched forward 1.81 points to greet the closing bell at 15,545.50
The S&P 500 index finished positive 3.44 points to 1,695.53. The NASDAQ moved higher 12.77 points to 3,600.39
Despite Monday's modest moves, all three indexes are up roughly 19% so far this year.
Nearly 160 companies in the S&P 500 are slated to report quarterly results this week. Among the Dow components on deck are AT&T, Boeing, and 3M
McDonald's said Monday that global sales and earnings rose in the second quarter, but profits fell short of analysts' expectations. The fast food chain also warned that sales will be "challenged" in the second half of the year. McDonald's was the biggest drag on the Dow Monday.
Kimberly-Clark, producer of Kleenex, Huggies, Kotex, Depends and Scott products, reported an increase in quarterly profit but sales were flat.
Six Flags shares fell after the amusement park operator said earnings slumped 26% in the second quarter. The company is also struggling with the fallout from a fatal roller coaster accident over the weekend.
This week, a number of big technology companies are slated to report, including Apple, Facebook and Amazon.
Following disappointing results from Google and Microsoft last week, investors are eager to see how other tech companies have fared. Apple, which can have an out-sized impact on the broader market, is expected to report a sharp drop in profits.
Netflix's report is due after the close.
In other corporate news, Yahoo! announced that it will repurchase 40 million Yahoo shares from long-time backer Third Point Capital. The hedge fund, run by activist investor Dan Loeb, will retain a small stake.
UBS agreed to pay about $745 million U.S. to settle a case with the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency over improperly selling mortgage-backed securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the United States.
Shares of mining companies were higher as the price of gold rose more than 2% to trade above $1,300 an ounce.
Barrick Gold, Newmont Mining, Kinross Gold all gained about 4%.
On the economic front, existing home sales fell by 1.2% in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.08 million in June but remain near a 3-1/2-year high. Economists had expected a rise of 1.4%.
Prices for the 10-year U.S. Treasury were down, raising yields back to Friday’s 2.49%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices docked $1.34 to $106.71 U.S. a barrel.
Gold surged $40.20 to $1,333.10 U.S. an ounce.
