Canadian stocks rose at the start of trading on Monday, with financials and other cyclical stocks driving most of the action -- even as a shakeup at Research In Motion Ltd. left the BlackBerry maker out of the rally.
The S&P TSX Composite Index leaped 105.93 points in the first hour of trading to 12,503.03
The Canadian dollar picked up 0.80 to 99.38 cents U.S.
RIM, where the co-founders and co-chief executives have resigned after considerably negative reaction to the stock’s performance over the past year, fell 6.7%.
However, Minefinders Corp. surged 24.7% after receiver a $1.5-billion takeover offer from Pan American Silver Corp.
Meantime, Ottawa-based Wi-LAN Inc. has launched a patent suit against RIM. The suit filed in a U.S. district court in Florida claims that the BlackBerry maker is infringing on two patents belonging to Wi-LAN.
Descartes Systems Group has acquired GeoMicro, Inc., a California-based company that provides advanced geographic information systems and navigation products. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed in Monday’s announcement.
On matters economic, Statistics Canada reported this morning that its composite leading index increased 0.8% in December, following a 0.9% gain the previous month, with eight of the 10 components rising.
Manufacturing increased across the board for the second consecutive month, with autos providing a substantial boost, and retail sales of durable goods increased for a sixth straight month.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange added 16.47 points to 1,587.81, while the Nasdaq Canada index retreated 8.19 points to 399.39.
All but three of the 14 Toronto subgroups were higher in the week’s first hour. Energy rumbled higher 1.6%, while financials gained 1.3% and materials traveled 1.2% higher.
The three laggards were information technology, plunging 2.5%, real-estate, off 0.1% and consumer staples, down 0.03%.
ON WALLSTREET
In New York, stocks rose early Monday as investors continued to wait for the latest news about Greece's debt talks.
The Dow Jones Industrials picked up 23.23 points to open the day and the week at 12,743.70
The S&P 500 was 6.74 points better to 1,322.12, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index picked up 10.69 points to 2,797.39.
The gains were modest and broad, with Bank of America and Hewlett-Packard leading the Dow higher. Sears Holdings was the biggest gainer among the S&P 500, but those gains were tempered by Netflix
With little on the U.S. economic docket Monday, investors remained firmly focused on Europe's issues.
All three indexes closed out last week more than 2% higher, buoyed by solid corporate earnings from Wall Street banks and some of the nation's largest tech firms.
BlackBerry maker Research in Motion announced its co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis will hand over the top job to former chief operating officer Thorsten Heins. After rising more than 3% in premarket trading, the stock was down more than 7%, dragging on the tech-heavy Nasdaq.
Shares of Carnival, which owns the grounded Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia, slumped 1%. Carnival's stock has dropped nearly 8% since the Jan. 13 accident.
Oilfield services giant Halliburton released quarterly results that beat Wall Street estimates on both earnings and revenue, but its shares edged 3% lower.
Greek debt talks were said to be progressing, but officials have yet to announce a deal to scale back the nation's overwhelming debt load.
The deal is a key condition for Greece to receive additional bailout funds from the European Union and International Monetary Fund. Without this financial support, Greece may not be able to make a €14-billion payment it owes on bonds that comes due March 20.
Euro-zone finance ministers were also meeting Monday, with debt issues likely dominating the talks.
Economically speaking, the Federal Reserve starts a two-day meeting on Tuesday, and for the first time ever, the central bank will release forward-looking forecasts for the federal funds rate. The government also releases its first estimate of fourth-quarter economic growth on Friday.
Treasury prices for the 10-year note eased, pushing yields up to 2.08% from Friday’s 2.03%.
Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions, and a fall in bond prices typically indicates that investors are willing to take on more risk, rather than buying up seemingly safe U.S. Treasuries.
Oil for February delivery jumped $1.19 to $99.52 U.S. a barrel.
Gold futures for February delivery rose $7 to $1,671 an ounce.
