Stocks on Bay Street traded higher on Monday -- fueled by strength in gold and energy stocks as tensions in the Middle East boosted oil and gold prices.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 326.74 points to 8,637.29.
Oil was the main focus Monday after a second day of strong gains pushed the February light crude contract back above $38 a barrel.
Rising tension in the Middle East pushed the contract higher as Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip continued and the country's Defense Minister Ehud Barak reportedly said it was fighting a ''war to the death'' with Hamas.
Crude for February delivery rose $2.31, or 6 percent, to end at $40.02 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier, the contract had soared to an intraday high of $42.20 a barrel in electronic trading on Globex.
In corporate news -- Angoss Software Corp., a provider of data mining and predictive analytics software for the financial services and information and communications technology industries, says it has acquired dthree Inc., a Toronto-based marketing software company. The price tag of the deal, announced Monday, was nearly $2.2 million.
Shares in the country's two big railways were lower as labour negotiations resumed to try to avert a possible strike that could halt millions of dollars worth of imports and exports that flow through British Columbia's ports.
About 450 ship and dock foremen could go on strike as early as Friday. If they do strike, about 5,000 other port workers are expected to walk off the job to support them.
The Canadian dollar, meanwhile, traded 0.41 cents higher at 82.11 cents US.
BAYSTREET
Twelve of the TSX sub-groups traded higher today -- gold stocks gained 10.14 percent followed by a 10.09 percent rise in mining issues and a 5.68 percent climb in energy stocks.
COMEX gold for February delivery rose $4.20 to settle at $874.60 US an ounce.
On the downside -- real-estate stocks were off 1.40 percent.
Meanwhile, the TSX Venture Exchange was up 45.99 points to 742.99 and the NASDAQ Canada was down 13.87 points at 411.94.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stocks fell Monday, but finished well off their worst levels of the day, as rising oil prices pressured consumer-related stocks, while investors ditched some of their worst-performing financial stocks in the final week of 2008.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, earlier in the day off as much as 151 points, in the end shed 31.62 points, or 0.4 percent, to 8483.93. The S&P 500 edged down 3.38 points or 0.4 percent to 869.42, and the Nasdaq lost 19.92 points or 1.3 percent to 1510.32.
In corporate news -- General Motors, which rose Friday after its finance arm was granted access to government aid, fell back 1.6 percent.
Separately, shares of Ford Motor dropped 3 percent. Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian, who had once pledged his support for Ford, said he sold all of his remaining shares in the auto maker.
Shares of the nation's largest chemical company plummeted after a major deal with Kuwait's state-run petrochemical company fell apart.
Petrochemical Industries Co. decided Sunday to scrap a $17.4 billion deal to form a joint venture with Dow Chemical, citing the recent decline in oil prices.
The news called into question Dow's ability to repay some $13 billion in debt it will take on once its acquisition of rival Rohm & Haas closes in early 2009.
Prices for U.S. Treasurys rose. The benchmark 10-year note added 10/32 to 114 20/32 and its yield fell to 2.10 percent from 2.16 percent Friday. The dollar fell versus the euro and the yen.
