TSX, loonie climb on U.S. factory orders

• North American markets, which experienced a bit of a bumpy ride late last week, closed higher Monday amid news that U.S. factory orders enjoyed their first increase since last summer.

Toronto’s S&P/TSX composite was up 27.70 points at 15,367.47, while the loonie rose 0.44 of a U.S. cent to 82.70 cents.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 46.34 points to 18,070.40, the Nasdaq index rose 11.54 points to 5,016.93 and the S&P 500 advanced 6.20 points to 2,114.49.

Markets were down sharply last Thursday, with the Dow registering an almost 200-point drop, before rallying to tripledigit gains on Friday.

In economic news, the Commerce Department reported that U.S. factory orders rose 2.1 per cent in March, breaking a string of seven monthly declines stretching back to July. Meanwhile, orders in a category that tracks business investment plans edged ahead 0.1 per cent for its first advance since last August.

It was just the opposite in China, where the HSBC’s manufacturing index based on a survey of factory purchasing managers fell to a 12-month low of 48.9 in April from 49.6 in March. The index is based on a 100-point scale on which numbers below 50 show contraction.

On commodity markets, crude oil was down 22 cents at US$58.93 a barrel, while gold rose US$12.30 to US$1,186.80 an ounce and copper fell a penny to US$2.92 a pound.