TSX posts small gain after holiday

The Toronto stock market capped a quiet trading session little changed Monday as it looked for but found little direction from usually volatile commodity markets.

The S&P/TSX composite index gained 32.08 points to 13,390.19 in the first day back from the Easter long weekend.

Canada’s main market, with a heavy weighting in resource stocks, got support from the utilities and financial sectors, but was pulled down slightly by base and precious metal miners.

The Canadian dollar was up 0.34 of a U.S. cent at 75.87 cents US.

Commodities were mixed, as April gold fell to its lowest level in more than a month, with bullion retreating $1.50 to US$1,220.10 a troy ounce.

The May contract for North American benchmark crude oil was flat, down seven cents at US$39.39 a barrel, while May natural gas was up five cents at US$1.94 per mmBTU. May copper added two cents to US$2.25 a pound.

“Commodities are keeping the TSX tame today,” said Craig Fehr, a Canadian markets strategist at Edward Jones in St. Louis, Mo.

“In the absence of data that provides conviction both to the upside or downside, we’re just going to see flat days like this. Investors are sitting back, taking stock of the volatility we’ve seen so far (this year). But I don’t think we’re going to see these calm markets continue. I think volatility is going to return. It’s going to be on the back of some data that really incites that volatility.”

There was positive economic news out of the U.S., but the data was not enough to push New York indexes much higher.

Wall Street stayed muted, as the Dow Jones industrial average gained 19.66 points to 17,535.39, while the broader S&P 500 added 1.11 points to 2,037.05. The Nasdaq pulled back 6.72 points to 4,766.79.

The Commerce Department said U.S. consumer spending grew for a third consecutive month in February, but only by a meagre 0.1 per cent.