It was a small gain enjoyed by Canadian stocks as March got underway, following a very lucrative February.
The S&P/TSX composite index increased 34.24 points, to begin the day, week and month at 15,262.21. The TSX gained about 4% last month.
The Canadian dollar inched up 0.03 cents to 80 cents U.S.
BlackBerry said it plans to offer a cloud-based version of its device management platform BES12, a move that will make the service more accessible to small- and medium-sized businesses that need to secure devices on their own networks. BlackBerry shares picked up 33 cents to $13.87.
The federal government outlined plans on Sunday to extend for a year exploration tax credits offered to miners and broaden the scope of the credits, in an attempt to boost a sector that has been ravaged by falling commodity prices and a scarcity of funding. In the gold field, Goldcorp went south 49 cents, or 1.8%, to $27.04.
Sun Life Financial said it was looking for acquisition opportunities in business areas such as wealth management that are less impacted low interest rates. Sun Life shares gave back 4.5 cents to $38.46.
Canaccord raised the target price on Artis REIT to $16.50 from $15.50. Units in Artis gained seven cents to $15.43.
CIBC raised the rating on Crombie REIT to outperform from sector performer. Crombie units gained 32 cents, to 2.4%, to $13.75.
Nomura raised the rating on First Quantum Minerals to buy from neutral. First Quantum shares hiked 46 cents, to 2.9%, to $16.31.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange lost 1.72 points to 705.01
Nine of the 14 Toronto subgroups were up, as health-care shares were haler by 1.4%, information technology clicked up 1.3%, and real-estate gained 1%.
The five laggards were weighed most by energy, down 0.7%, gold, slipping 0.6%, and utilities, off 0.5%.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stocks traded higher on Monday as investors digested Chinese economic news and U.S. manufacturing data.
The Dow Jones Industrials hiked 107.18 points to begin March at 18,239.88, McDonald's and Visa led blue chip advancers.
The S&P 500 regained 8.47 points to 2,112.97,
The NASDAQ index leaped 34.24 points to 4,997.77, to within sight of the 5,000 mark, a level not reached since March 2000 during the tech bubble.
In corporate news, HP announced on Monday it will acquire Aruba Networks for approximately $2.7 billion U.S.
Costco announced a new credit card program agreement with Citi, supported by Visa's network. The warehouse retailer failed to renew terms with American Express after a 16-year partnership.
Sotheby's reported adjusted earnings of $1.12 U.S. that missed estimates on revenue of $351.2 million U.S. that beat expectations.
Companies reporting after the bell include Mylan Labs, Palo Alto Networks and Salix Pharma.
Berkshire Hathaway is in focus following the release of Warren Buffett's annual investment letter and the company's latest earnings.
Those numbers did fall short of estimates, and Buffett said it was likely that although Berkshire would outperform other companies in the future, its size may make it impossible to equal past gains.
Over the weekend, NXP announced it is buying rival Freescale Semiconductor for about $11.8 billion U.S. in cash and stock, for a deal valued at $40 billion U.S. total. Freescale stockholders will receive $6.25 U.S. per share in cash and 0.3521 NXP shares for each share they now hold.
The U.S. manufacturing sector had its best gains since October, according to Markit's final Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index that rose to 55.1 in February from 53.9 in January.
ISM Manufacturing for February was 52.9, its slowest pace in 13 months. Construction spending fell 1.1 percent in January.
Personal income increased of 0.3%, while personal spending fell 0.2% in January.
The People's Bank of China cut benchmark interest rates by 25 basis points to 5.35% on Saturday as deteriorating economic conditions forced the central bank to shorten the time gap between policy moves.
The HSBC/Markit Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for China climbed to 50.7 in February—the strongest level since July—from the contraction level of 49.7 in January, as overall new orders picked up. However, the survey indicated that manufacturing contracted significantly as the firms struggled to cope with erratic export demand and deflationary pressures.
Prices for 10-year U.S. Treasuries faded, raising yields to 2.03% from Friday’s 2%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices sank 67 cents to $49.09 U.S.
Gold prices dipped $1.20 an ounce to $1,211.90 U.S.
