The Toronto stock market was slightly higher Monday as the latest reading on U.S. manufacturing showed slowing expansion and the Chinese central bank moved to spark that country's slowing economy through a rate cut.
The S&P/TSX composite index stayed positive 29.71 points, to close Monday at 15,264.05
The Canadian dollar faded 0.23 cents to 79.74 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.
On Monday, May copper edged a penny higher to $2.70 U.S. a pound and the base metals group slipped. Shares in Sherritt International acquired a penny to $2.52, while Teck Resources dipped 13 cents to $19.95.
The energy sector was down with Imperial Oil giving back six cents a share to $48.18, while Suncor shares shed 40 cents, or 1.1%, to $37.13.
Falling prices pushed the gold sector down substantially. Goldcorp trailed Friday’s close by 92 cents, or 3.3%, to $26.61, while Barrick Gold descended 23 cents, or 1.4%, to $16.03.
Health-care stocks proved a bright spot as Valeant Pharmaceuticals International sprouted $8.49, or 3.5%, to $254.76.
Tech stocks and consumer discretionary stocks provided lift for the TSX.
BlackBerry shares gained 35 cents, or 2.6%, to $13.89, while Aimia Inc. took on 68 cents, or 5.3%, to $13.53.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange lost 2.38 points to 704.35
The 14 Toronto subgroups were evenly divided between gainers and losers, as health-care sprinted out 2.7%, information technology moved higher by 1.9%, and consumer discretionary stocks strengthened 0.9%.
The seven laggards were weighed most by gold, down 2.2%, while the metals and mining and materials groups both subsided 0.9% each.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stocks gained on Monday, with the NASDAQ above the psychologically important level of 5,000 and blue chips reaching a new intraday record as investors cheered U.S. economic data and an interest rate cut in China.
The Dow Jones Industrials hiked 155.93 points to end trading Monday at 18,288.63, following mostly encouraging U.S. economic reports. Visa led blue-chip gains.
The S&P 500 gained 12.89 points to 2,117.39
The NASDAQ index leaped 44.57 points to 5,008.10, clearing the 5,000 mark, which the index had not done 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.
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.
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 2.08% from Friday’s 2%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices lost seven cents to $49.69 U.S.
Gold prices dipped $6.90 an ounce to $1,206.20 U.S.
