Stocks in Toronto steady on Monday as weakness in shares of energy producers on lower oil prices was offset by a gain in Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc.
The S&P/TSX composite index stayed positive 24.95 points, to greet noon at 15,259.29
The Canadian dollar inched up 0.21 cents to 79.75 cents U.S.
Trading in the benchmark TSX index has been choppy in recent months because of fluctuations in the price of oil. It is up about 4% since the start of the year.
Valeant shares jumped 2% to $251.21 after recent acquisition moves and helped fuel an advance in the index's health-care sector.
Shares of energy producers were down. Suncor Energy declined 1% to $36.87, and Encana Corp lost 0.7% to $16.18.
The gold-mining sector fell with the bullion price. Goldcorp shed 1.9% to $27.02, and Barrick Gold Corp was down 1.1% to $16.08.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange lost 2.31 points to 704.42
The 14 Toronto subgroups were evenly divided between gainers and losers, as health-care sprinted out 2.3%, information technology moved higher by 1.7%, and metals and mining strengthened 1.1%.
The seven laggards were weighed most by gold, down 1.3%, utilities, sliding 0.9%, and energy, off 0.6%.
ON WALLSTREET
The NASDAQ briefly touched the psychologically important level of 5,000 on Monday as investors cheered U.S. economic data and an interest rate cut in China.
The Dow Jones Industrials hiked 114.38 points to pause for lunch Monday at 18,247.08, following mostly encouraging U.S. economic reports. Intel and Cisco led blue-chip gainers.
The S&P 500 regained 6.29 points to 2,110.79,
The NASDAQ index leaped 28.82 points to 4,992.35, to within sight of the 5,000 mark, which the index has not seen since the tech bubble of 2000.
In corporate news, HP announced on Monday it will acquire Aruba Networks for approximately $3 billion U.S.
Over the weekend, NXP announced it is buying rival Freescale Semiconductor for about $11.8 billion U.S. in cash and stock, a deal valued at $40 billion U.S. in total. Freescale stockholders will receive $6.25 U.S. per share in cash and 0.3521 NXP shares for each share they now hold.
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.
Trading in Lumber Liquidators was halted after CBS' "60 Minutes" reported that the company sold flooring with higher levels of formaldehyde than permitted under California's health and safety standards.
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.
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% 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 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 2.07% from Friday’s 2%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices regained 85 cents to $50.61 U.S.
Gold prices dipped five dollars an ounce to $1,208.10 U.S.
