The Toronto stock market chalked up a slight gain Monday as traders looked beyond the weekend vote that saw an overwhelming number of Crimeans opt to break from Ukraine and join Russia
The S&P/TSX composite index added 4.23 points to close Monday at 14,231.89
The Canadian dollar strengthened 0.34 cents at 90.45 cents U.S.
Meanwhile, Imperial Oil is selling its interest in assets located in Boundary Lake, Cynthia/West Pembina and Rocky Mountain House in Western Canada to Whitecap Resources Inc. for approximately $855 million. Imperial shares added 10 cents to $51.17.
Whitecap shares were up 81 cents, or 7%, to $12.34 on very heavy volume of 12.4 million shares on the TSX after the company also issued improved production figures and hiked its annual dividend payout to 75 cents a year from 68 cents.
And the Wall Street Journal reported that gas giant Encana is in advanced talks to sell its Wyoming natural gas fields to private equity firm Carlyle Group for about $2 billion. Its shares eked up eight cents to $22.54.
The TSX base metals sector advanced with copper unchanged at $2.95 U.S. a pound after a string of negative data from China sent prices down 8% last week. Teck Resources gained 37 cents to $23.23.
The gold sector gave back ground as Barrick Gold retreated 57 cents to $22.62, and Goldcorp fell 95 cents, or 1%, to $30.89.
However, the financial and industrial sectors provided lift for the Toronto market.
Bombardier Inc. is one of four companies picked to supply a total of 1,064 locomotives to South Africa's state-owned freight rail system.
The total contract is worth about $5.16 billion but Bombardier's announcement didn't disclose how much its share was worth. Its shares gained 17 cents to $4.09.
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 stayed positive 0.50 points to 1,034.14
All but three of the 14 Toronto subgroups were higher, led by the metals and mining sector, up 1.4%, while industrials and global base metals jumped 0.9% each.
The three laggards were gold, sliding 3.1%, materials, down 1.7%, and health-care, down 0.4%.
ON WALLSTREET
Stocks jumped Monday even as the West imposed sanctions on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ballooned 181.55 points, or 1.1%, to snap a five-day losing streak and end the session at 16,247.22
The S&P 500 index gained 17.70 points to 1,858.83. The NASDAQ spiked 34.55 points to 4,279.95.
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.
And Yahoo shares jumped 4% 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 on the announcement that the company will join the S&P 500.
Hertz spiked almost 5% after rumors that the company plans to spin off its equipment rental business.
Shares of Sears rose after the struggling retailer's board approved the spinoff of its Lands' End clothing line.
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 2.70% from Friday’s 2.64%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices dropped 68 cents to $98.01 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices faded $13 to $1,366.00 U.S. an ounce.
