The Toronto market remains slightly higher in afternoon trading, with gold-backed stocks leading the rally. A drop in financial stocks and a disappointing GDP report have limited the gains.
The S&P/TSX Composite index tacked on 30.72 points to end the day’s trading at 11,677.13
Gold and materials stocks both gained ground, as New Gold rallied 2.9% to $3.85 after the company said that it has sold $56.3 million of face value asset backed notes for cash proceeds of $31.2 million.
Goldcorp surged 3.1% to $41.96 as the company said it is considering increasing its offer for Canplats Resources Corp. the company has the right to match the terms of an offer by Minera Penmont of $4.20 per share plus shares of a newly-formed company.
Canadian Zinc was even at 30.5 cents after the company said it acquired 3.4 million shares of Zazu Metals Corporation representing approximately 11.1% Zazu's outstanding shares, for a consideration of $650,000.
Agrium added 2.5% to $65.72 after the company said that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has granted an early termination of the waiting period in connection with the proposed acquisition of CF Industries Holdings.
Mining stocks were gainers, too, with FNX Mining rising 1.6% to $11.60 as the company said it expects its production in 2010 to total 891,000 tons of ore shipped, a 31% increase over the 2009 production plan.
In other corporate news, Bombardier slid two cents to $4.76 after the company said it has signed a deal with Swedish railway company AB Transitio to deliver 11 three-car Contessa trains, valued at about EUR 96 million, or $137 million U.S.
Meanwhile, Research in Motion dropped 0.5% to $70.85 as the company worked to fix e-mail service problems on the Blackberry after a widespread outage on Tuesday.
Nortel Networks Corp. said it entered into an asset sale deal with Genband Inc. for the sale of its Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions business for $282 million U.S.
Statistics Canada reported that real gross domestic product grew 0.2% in October. Economists were expecting the economy to expand slightly faster at 0.3% after September's 0.4% growth.
The Canadian dollar gained 0.89 cents to 95.40 cents U.S.
ON BAYSTREET
Of the 14 TSX subgroups, eight ended the day higher. Gold was 2% up on the day, followed by materials, up 1.7% and metals and mining, which prospered 1.6%.
Financials weighed most on the six groups that went down, falling 0.9%, followed by health-care stocks, off 0.7%, consumer staples were down 0.3%.
The TSX Venture Exchange gained 28.26 points to 1,450.67, while the Nasdaq Canada index advanced 6.90 points to 731.33.
ON WALLSTREET
In New York, stocks held modest gains Wednesday, with the major indexes hovering near 14-month highs, as strength in technology shares and commodities offset concerns about the housing market.
The Dow Jones Industrials made its way into the green soon before the close, gaining 1.51 points to 10,466.44, while the broader S&P 500 was up 2.57 points to 1,120,59, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 16.97 points to 2,269.64.
The government said Wednesday that sales of new homes unexpectedly plummeted by 11.3% in November to their lowest level since April. That helped push shares of Home Depot down 1.3%.
Pharmaceutical giant Merck slid 1.4%. Bank stocks also took a hit, with Bank of America and JPMorgan both falling about 0.75%.
Technology stocks continued to rally after chipmaker Micron Technology and software company Red Hat both reported strong earnings Tuesday night.
Energy and industrial shares advanced as oil prices surged 2.6% after government data showed the nation's supplies of crude fell last week.
The Commerce Department also said income climbed by 0.4%, or $49.7 billion U.S., in November, after an upwardly revised 0.3% rise in October. That was the biggest gain since May, when it rose 1.5%. The figure was still below a consensus estimate of a 0.5% rise collected by Briefing.com.
Spending by individuals rose 0.5% last month, or $47.9 billion U.S., below analysts' expectations of a 0.7% hike. Personal spending was up 0.6% in October.
Separately, the Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said the final December reading on the index of consumer sentiment was 72.5, the highest since September. That was up from 67.4 in November and 60.1 a year ago.
Treasury prices were flat, keeping yields on the benchmark 10-year note at Tuesday’s 3.75%.
The price of a barrel of oil gained $2.05 to $76.46 U.S.
Gold prices gained eight dollars to $1,095 an ounce U.S.
