Traders bide time ahead of Fed interest-rate update

TORONTO — Monday was a muted trading day on North American stock markets as indices on both sides of the border posted modest gains ahead of this week’s U.S. Federal Reserve meeting.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 7.44 points to 16103.51, with gains in base metal and energy stocks outweighing losses in the financial and gold sectors.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average advanced 56.87 points to 24386.03 and the S&P 500 index added 8.49 points to 2659.99 — boosts large enough to take both indices into record territory. The Nasdaq composite index was up 35.00 points to 6875.08.

Craig Fehr, a Canadian market strategist with Edward Jones in St. Louis, said it was a pretty quiet day for Bay Street and for Wall Street.

“Part of that’s probably a bit of a pause after the action that we saw last week, which was pretty heavy with economic data,” he said.

“The other part of it is the markets are probably waiting to see what commentary comes from the U.S. Federal Reserve later this week in terms of what that might signal for monetary policy ahead of 2018.”

The Fed is scheduled to issue an interest-rate policy update on Wednesday. It is expected to lift rates by a quarter of a percentage point. It would be the third interest-rate hike by the U.S. central bank this year.

Last week, better-than-expected data showed U.S. employers added 228,000 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate remained at a low 4.1 per cent, bullish indicators for the U.S. economy.

In currency markets, the Canadian dollar closed at an average trading price of 77.80 cents US, up 0.04 of a U.S. cent.

“The loonie is flat at the moment,” said Fehr, which he attributed to last week’s Bank of Canada decision to keep interest rates steady at one per cent.

“That dovish statement by the Bank of Canada put a little downward pressure on the loonie, and I think that’s probably emblematic of the bigger story we’re going to see with the loonie as we move ahead.”

On the commodities front, the January crude contract climbed 63 cents to $57.99 US per barrel and the January natural-gas contract gained six cents to $2.83 US per mmBTU.

The February gold contract was down $1.50 to $1,246.90 US an ounce and the March copper contract was up three cents to $3.01 US a pound.

Apple orchestrates deal for song-recognition app

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple has bought Shazam, the maker of a song-recognition app that Apple’s digital assistant, Siri, had already been using to help people identify the music playing on their iPhones.

The companies didn’t disclose the price of the acquisition announced Monday. Technology news site Recode previously reported Apple would pay $400 million US for Shazam, citing three unidentified people familiar with the deal.

Apple Inc. issued a statement describing Shazam as “natural fit” with its services.

“We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam,” Apple said. The Cupertino, California, company declined to say whether Shazam’s app will still be available after the deal closes.

Some of Shazam’s features could be blended into Apple’s music streaming services, which has accumulated more than 27 million subscribers since the company created it in 2015.

The Shazam deal marks Apple’s biggest acquisition in music since it paid about $3 billion US for Beats Electronics’ line of headphones and music service in 2014.

Digital services played an increasingly important role for Apple.