The Toronto stock market held onto a small advance late morning Monday amid hints about further stimulus measures for Europe and China.
The S&P/TSX composite index was ahead 18.06 points to greet noon at 14,726.16
The Canadian dollar strengthened 0.14 cents to 92.12 cents U.S.
The base metals sector led TSX advancers, with copper prices improving in the wake of the Chinese premier's comments. Commodity markets were closed in New York, but July copper gained two cents to $3.19 U.S. a pound in electronic trading.
The financials sector was also supportive, as traders look to take in earnings from National Bank and Scotiabank on Tuesday, Bank of Montreal on Wednesday and CIBC on Thursday.
Hopes are high for another series of solid reports after Royal Bank and TD Bank posted earnings reports last week that blew past expectations with strong contributions from major divisions and lower loan loss provisions.
Those bank earnings helped push the TSX up 1.3% last week.
The gold sector shed early gains and the sector was down, while June bullion gained 90 cents to $1,292.60 U.S. an ounce.
The energy sector also moved lower as July crude moved down 17 cents to $104.18 U.S. a barrel.
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the bank could engage in large-scale bond purchases to combat the negative spiral of low inflation if need be. Draghi's remarks at a conference held out the prospect for action to stimulate the weak recovery at the ECB's next governing council meeting June 5.
Also, remarks by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang suggested Beijing is preparing further mini-stimulus measures to support the economy.
Li said appropriate policy tools and timely fine tuning are being prepared as the world's second biggest economy continues to face "relatively big" downward pressure, the state-run China Daily newspaper said Saturday.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange grew 4.06 points to 992.01.
Nine of the 14 Toronto subgroups were positive midday, led by metals and mining, up 0.5%, financials, stronger by 0.4%, and consumer discretionary stocks, up 0.3%
The five laggards were weighed mostly by gold and health-care stocks, down 0.2% each, and information technology, down 0.1%.
ON WALLSTREET
American markets are shuttered today for Memorial Day
