Stock index and loonie move higher
TORONTO — Amid stronger than expected jobs data and a slight uptick in the price of oil, Canada’s main stock index and the value of the loonie rose.
The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index added 50.12 points to 15,473.21, led by the energy and financials sectors. Energy stocks on the TSX were up 1.95 per cent, while financials stocks climbed 1.1 per cent.
The average value for the Canadian dollar was 74.33 cents US, up 0.27 of a cent from Thursday. The gains came as Statistics Canada reported that the labour market added 54,400 jobs in May, with full-time positions surging by 77,000, more than making up for the decline of 22,300 part-time jobs. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate rose by 0.1 of a percentage point to 6.6 per cent as more people entered the job market.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 89.44 points to a new record of 21,271.97. The S&P 500 index retreated 2.02 points to 2,431.77 and the Nasdaq index gave back 113.84 points to 6,207.92.
Chief market analyst Colin Cieszynski of CMC Markets Canada said investors are breathing a sigh of relief after former FBI director James Comey’s testimony Thursday. “He didn’t say anything to suggest that anybody is going to be able to come up with a way to impeach Trump,” Cieszynski said. “The markets took that as a positive sign because usually past impeachment processes have been terrible for stock markets. When they went after Clinton the market went down 20 per cent and when they went after Nixon the market went down 40 per cent.”
The July crude contract was up 19 cents at US$45.83 per barrel and the July natural gas contract added one cent to US$3.04 per mmBTU. The August gold contract was down $8.10 to US$1,271.40 an ounce and the July copper contract rose four cents at US$2.65 a pound.
In corporate news, Encana Corp. has a deal to sell its Piceance natural gas assets in Colorado for US$735 million cash to Caerus Oil and Gas LLC of Denver. The Piceance assets include approximately 3,100 operated wells, which produced about 240 million cubic feet per day of natural gas in the first quarter. They also produced 2,178 barrels per day of liquids.
Encana has been focusing its efforts on four core areas in Texas and western Canada, and selling non-core parts of its business since the downturn on crude oil prices began in late 2014.