Roundup: Canadian stock market ends higher on strong bank earnings and Blackberry upgrade
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E-mail Xinhua, November 30, 2012
The Canadian stock market's main index hit its highest level of this week on Thursday, boosted by strong quarterly earnings reports from Canada's biggest bank and a rally in shares of Blackberry maker Research in Motion also supported the market.
The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite index closed up 62.52 points, or 0.51 percent, to 12,202.85 while S&P/TSX Venture Composite index gained 13.01 points, or 1.08 percent, to 1,218.38.
The market sentiment was also lifted by optimism that a deal would be reached to avoid the U.S. fiscal cliff crisis. Lawmakers and the White House have been in talks for months before the deadline when the tax hikes and spending cuts threaten to push the U.S. back into recession.
All eight sectors on the main index on the Canadian market were up, led by financial sector with a rise of 0.8 percent. Royal Bank of Canada, the country's largest bank, rose 0.45 percent, to 58.61 Canadian dollars per share after it reported a 22 percent jump in fourth-quarter profit on rising fixed income trading revenue and steady loan growth. Shares of other major banks also rose on optimism about the strong performance in the last quarter in 2012. Some of them will report the quarterly results next week.
Some analysts are optimistic about the Toronto stock market's performance in the rest one-month time in 2012. They said the combination of healthy Canadian bank earnings and some encouraging global economic data could help the Canadian stock market extend gains further into the end of the year.
Energy stocks finished higher as well and up 0.49 percent. Canadian Natural Resources rose 1.06 percent to 28.44 Canadian dollars per share and Suncor Energy climbed 0.37 percent to 32.85 Canadian dollars per share.
In terms of stocks, Blackberry maker Research in Motion, which surged about 13 percent in early trading, was up 4.36 percent at 11.48 Canadian dollars after Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock ahead of the release of its BlackBerry 10 devices.
Shares of Air Canada were up 1.7 percent after Canada's biggest airline unveiled a major expansion in its flights to Asia including China as it seeks to boost revenue.
On the economic front, figures released by Statistics Canada showed the Raw Materials Price Index (RMPI) was unchanged in October. The decline in non-ferrous metals was offset by increases in most commodities, particularly mineral fuels. The RMPI measures price changes for raw materials purchased by industries in Canada for further processing.
In currency, the Canadian dollar ran down to trade at 1.0074 U. S. dollars at 5 p.m. local time (2200 GMT) on Thursday, compared to 1.0077 U.S. dollar on Wednesday. Endi
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