Toronto stocks closed 1 percent higher on Friday with gold miners leading a broad-based rally as the market shrugged off signs of a slowdown in Canada's job market.
The Toronto Stock Exchange's key S&P/TSX composite index jumped more than hundred points in the late afternoon before retreating slightly to close up 90.20 points, or 1.06 percent, at 8,638.61.
About 265 million shares worth C$3.37 billion changed hands. On the week the index gained 1.38 percent.
Gold miners, a subsector of materials, rose 4.1 percent as the price of bullion surged on the back of a weak US dollar.
Canada's largest gold miner, Barrick Gold Corp rose 50 Canadian cents, or 1.8 percent, to C$27.25, and Placer Dome Inc was up C$1.18, or 5.6 percent, at C$22.38.
"We were down earlier in the week, people got over Cisco's news and are obviously in a sufficiently bullish mood to ignore it," said Gavin Graham, vice president and director of investments with Guardian Group of Funds.
Earlier in the week tech bellwether Cisco Systems Inc brought techs crashing down with a bearish outlook.
But a strong quarterly performance from Ericsson, the Swedish telecoms equipment maker, helped lift techs 2.71 percent on Friday.
Zarlink Semiconductor rose 35 Canadian cents, or 7 percent, to C$5.45, while Sierra Wireless rose C$2.27, or 6 percent, to C$37.80.
Nortel Networks Corp, the biggest company on the exchange, rose 26 Canadian cents, or 2.5 percent, to C$10.45.
All of the TSX's 10 subindexes gained ground.
News that Canada's economy created fewer jobs in January than it had during each of the previous four months, and that job growth came in lower than expected, failed to temper market enthusiasm.
Instead the increased likelihood of an interest-rate cut in Canada gave stocks a boost as did a weaker-than-expected US employment report, which fuelled speculation the US Federal Reserve may not raise rates any time soon.
The past few weeks have been marked by wild swings in the TSX, something that analysts attribute in part to larger volume and bouts of caution.
"There's a lot of hot money around. If anyone has come out with disappointing numbers, even if they failed to beat the whisper number, they get whacked," said Graham.
"There is obviously a lot of non-fundamental hot money just chasing the short-term performance."
The blue-chip S&P/TSX index finished up 3.97 points, or 0.83 percent, at 482.49.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 97.48 points, or 0.93 percent, to 10,593.03.
While the tech-laden Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 44.45 points, or 2.2 percent, to 2,064.01.
Comments
Comments are closed.