Canadian market starts 2017 with triple-digit gain

Canadian market starts 2017 with triple-digit gain

TORONTO— Canada’s main stock market in Toronto kicked off 2017 with its first triple-digit gain in four weeks, as rising gold and silver prices contributed.

After finishing 2016 with a 17.51 percent gain, the Toronto Stock Exchange’s benchmark Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite climbed 115.44 points, or 0.76 percent, to finish the first session of 2017 at 15,403.03 points. Eight of the ten sub-sectors started the year ahead.

Materials and Health Care groups saw the biggest gains, advancing 2.30 percent and 1.51 percent, respectively.

The Materials group, which is made up of producers of gold, precious metals, and raw materials saw sharp gains for a third time in four days to mirror changes in gold and silver prices. The spot price of an ounce of gold rose 0.64 percent to USD1,158.30, while the same weight of silver soared 2.46 percent to USD16.27.

As a result of the uplift in metal prices, six of the top ten most traded stocks by volume on the day belonged to the Materials group. Toronto-based gold miners Yamana Gold Inc., IAMGOLD Corporation, and B2Gold Corp. saw respective surges of 6.90 percent, 6.74 percent, and 6.27 percent.

Meanwhile, shares of Toronto-based Barrick Gold, the world’ s largest gold producer, rose 2.56 percent to 22.04 Canadian dollars (USD16.41).

The TSX Health Care group continued its latest rally, finishing ahead for a sixth straight session. Laval-based pharmaceutical firms Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and ProMetic Life Sciences rose 5.39 percent to 20.52 Canadian dollars (USD15.28) and 4.48 percent to 2.33 Canadian dollars (USD1.73). Dating back to Dec. 22, ProMetic shares have finished positive in each session and gained a combined 46.54 percent.

Other groups to finish in the positive on Monday were: Financials (0.83 percent), Energy (0.67 percent), Telecommunications (0.63 percent), Consumer Discretionary (0.50 percent), Industrials (0.25 percent), and Information Technology (0.18 percent).

The Financials group, which accounts for the largest weight in the index, rose as all of Canada’ s top-four banks saw increases in share price. No. 3 ranked Bank of Nova Scotia had the largest gain on the day of 1.34 percent to close at 75.76 Canadian dollars (USD56.40) a share. No. 2 Toronto-Dominion Bank followed with a 1.04 percent gain, while No. 1 ranked Royal Bank of Canada and No. 4 ranked Bank of Montreal rounded out the list with gains of 0.69 percent and 0.51 percent.

Meanwhile, Energy group finished up despite price of crude oil slipping. March futures for a barrel of Brent in London fell 1.89 percent to USD55.68 a barrel. Despite the drop, shares of Calgary-based Baytex Energy Corp. and Encana Corporation were among the top-ten most traded and both finished higher.

Baytex, which saw more than 7 million shares exchanged rose 3.05 percent to 6.76 Canadian dollars (USD5.03) a share. Meanwhile, Encana and its nearly five million shares traded moved up 1.90 percent to 16.06 Canadian dollars (USD11.96).

Industrials gained as Class B shares of Bombardier Inc. were the most actively traded on the day at 12.4 million shares. Stock price of the Montreal-based producer and planes and trains surged 5.56 percent to finish the day at 2.28 Canadian dollars (USD1.70).

Groups on the losing side on Tuesday were Utilities and Consumer Staples, retreating 0.73 percent and 0.32 percent, respectively.

The Canadian dollar inched down 0.0005 to begin the year at USD0.7444.