Investors joined in a collective sigh of relief early Monday, sending indices up, after Sunday's referendum in Crimea, in which voters overwhelmingly voted to join Russia, passed without violence.
The S&P/TSX composite index sprang to life 83.75 points to begin a new week at 14,311.41
The Canadian dollar strengthened 0.16 cents at 90.27 cents U.S.
The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp sued 16 of the world's largest banks on Friday, including Royal Bank of Canada, accusing them of cheating dozens of other now defunct banks by manipulating the Libor interest rate. RBC shares hiked, nonetheless, by 42 cents, to $71.59.
CIBC cut the rating on Nordion to underperform from sector perform, Nordion shares dropped 30 cents to $11.17.
CIBC cut the rating on Parkland Fuel to sector perform from outperform. Parkland Fuel added 10 cents to $21.67.
On the economic beat, Canadian investors bolstered their holdings by $2.3 billion of foreign securities in January, a fourth straight improvement. At the same time, foreign investors acquired $1.1 billion of Canadian securities, led by equities.
The Canadian Real Estate Association reported this morning that national home sales edged up 0.3% from January to February. Non-seasonally adjusted activity stood 1.9% above February 2013 levels. The number of newly listed homes edged up 0.6% from January to February.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange grew 3.87 points to 1,037.51
Among the 14 Toronto subgroups, only gold slouched, dropping 0.7%. All other groups made headway, most notably metals and mining, up 2%, global base metals, up 1.7%, and industrials, ahead 1.3%.
ON WALLSTREET
Stocks surged Monday as investors even as the West imposed sanctions on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ballooned 179.31 points, or 1.1%, to 16,244.98
The S&P 500 index gained 18.46 points to 1,859.59. The NASDAQ spiked 46.56 points to 4,291.96.
On the corporate front, some tech stocks got a boost from their early investments in some hotly anticipated initial public offerings.
Sina shares bounced after the Chinese media conglomerate's Weibo subsidiary filed to go public Friday. Beijing-based Weibo, with over 61 million users as of December, is considered the Twitter of China.
Yahoo shares jumped Monday after Chinese internet giant Alibaba said over the weekend that it plans to go public in the U.S. Yahoo! owns a stake in Alibaba, a company which has been compared to Amazon and eBay and is expected to raise as much as $15 billion U.S.
Keurig Green Mountain shares popped Monday on the announcement that the company will join the S&P 500.
Shares of Sears rose after the struggling retailer's board approved the spinoff of its Lands' End business.
Initial results show Crimeans who voted in a Sunday referendum overwhelmingly supported the idea of breaking from Ukraine to join Russia. The results were expected -- and the West maintained the referendum was illegal. Moscow strongly backed the vote.
European Union officials on Monday agreed to sanctions on 21 individuals that include both travel bans and asset freezes. There are worries that sanctions risk escalating a trade war would hit the global economy.
Prices for 10-year U.S. Treasuries subsided, raising yields to 2.67% from Friday’s 2.64%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices dropped 33 cents to $98.56 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices faded $1.50 to $1,377.50 U.S. an ounce.
