Toronto stocks push higher

The Toronto stock market's main index finished higher for the second day in a row on Friday, with help from resource shares lifted by commodity prices, and a broad bounce-back from recent depressed levels.
It was only the second time this month that the index has managed to sustain a two-day rally, as concerns over the health of the US economy have pushed the TSX into a steep decline since November began. Some of the shine from the kickoff of the US Christmas shopping season rubbed off on the TSX, as investor worries over a slowdown in consumer spending south of the border began to ease.
"If the consumer in the US doesn't climb into a bunker somewhere, then we have a reasonable prospect of getting through the all-important Christmas season in pretty good shape," said Rick Hutcheon, president and chief operating officer at RKH Investments.
"Keep consumer spending going and, maybe, just maybe, we can crawl through this without a great deal more damage than we've already seen," Hutcheon said.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 86.20 points, or 0.64 percent, at 13,467.20 with seven of the 10 main sectors ending higher. But the index is still down in territory last seen in August and was off 0.5 percent for the week.
Strong gold prices put some luster in the materials group, which gained 2.6 percent as spot gold spiked to an intraday high above $825 an ounce. Barrick Gold was up C$1.05, or 2.5 percent, at C$42.40 and Goldcorp rose 90 Canadian cents, or 2.8 percent, to C$33.60. The gold subsector rose 3.3 percent.
The heavyweight energy sector gained 0.7 percent as oil prices moved up 89 cents to $98.18 a barrel as cold weather arrived in the US north-west. Suncor Energy rose C$1.34, or 1.3 percent, to C$101.34 and Petro-Canada was up 42 Canadian cents, or 0.8 percent, at C$51.60.
Also in the oil patch, Petrobank Energy and Resources said it will buy Peerless Energy Inc for C$334 million to boost its presence in south-east Saskatchewan. Petrobank ended down 46 Canadian cents, or 0.9 percent, at C$52.94, while Peerless was up C$1.51, or 18.1 percent, at C$9.86.
Elsewhere, Thomson Corp said it will buy back up to 15 million shares, sending its stock up C$1.31, or 3.4 percent, to C$39.46. The two days of gains for the TSX came as US markets were closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving and logged only a half day on Friday. The absence of bad news from the troubled US credit market helped add some buoyancy to the Toronto index.
"The fact the international markets can do well with the US out of the picture suggests in the mind of most investors the issues of the subprime stuff really is more America-centric and less of a global issue," said Hutcheon. However, analysts warned that it was too early to tell if the upswing was a trend, and cautioned that Toronto could be back in the negative on Monday.
"We expected some sort of bounce because it's oversold conditions but it's definitely not a trend. We need a few days like that," said Ian Nakamoto, director of research at MacDougall, MacDougall & MacTier.
Market volume was 334 million shares worth C$4.5 billion. Advancers outpaced decliners 1,021 to 556. The blue chip S&P/TSX 60 index closed up 4.43 points, or 0.6 percent, at 784.52.