CHINESE DATE LIFT METAL, MINING STOCKS
The Toronto stock market closed higher Monday as positive Chinese data lifted metal prices and mining stocks, while the energy sector advanced following Friday’s announcement clarifying takeovers by foreign state-owned energy companies.
The S&P/TSX composite index gained 70.88 points to 12,230.47 while the TSX Venture Exchange added 0.68 of a point to 1,186.74.
The Canadian dollar gained 0.41¢ to US101.32¢.
Global markets were, however, weighed down amid the surprise resignation of Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, widely credited with restoring confidence in Italy as the country deals with a debt crisis and fiscal cliff worries.
Monti said he found it impossible to lead after former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s party, parliament’s largest, dropped its support. Monti later sought to calm financial markets, saying he would stay on until the next government takes power.
The Dow Jones industrials were up 14.75 points to 13,169.88, the Nasdaq gained 8.92 points to 2,986.96 while the S&P 500 index edged up 0.48 of a point to 1,418.55.
The federal government on Friday approved two high-profile deals. The statecontrolled China National Offshore Oil
Corp. got the green light for its $15.1-bil- lion purchase of Nexen Inc. And Malaysian state-controlled energy company Petronas can go ahead with its $6-billion acquisition of Progress Energy Resources Corp.
Nexen shot up 13.53% to $26.44 while Progress shares jumped 13.3% to $21.96.
However, Prime Minister Stephen Harper made it clear state-owned energy companies will find it extremely difficult to buy up Canadian oil sands producers in future.
There had been concerns some of those companies could be under heavy selling pressure since they can no longer realistically hope to be snapped up by foreign state-owned enterprises at fat share price premiums.
But price declines were relatively mild. For example, MEG Energy Corp. was down $1.07 to $33.65, Southern Pacific Resource was unchanged at $1.24, Athabasca Oil Corp. was down 25¢ to $10 and
Canadian Oil Sands gave back 22¢ to $19.78. A glaring exception was Connacher
Oil and Gas, which tumbled 21% to 21¢ on very heavy volume of 10.3 million shares.
But analysts pointed out state-controlled energy companies aren’t the only source of capital or acquisitions.
“Part of the reason we’re not seeing some of these names get struck down is because they do have the ability to go up on their own merit,” said Craig Fehr, Canadian markets specialist at Edward Jones in St. Louis.