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TORONTO, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Canada's main stock market in Toronto finished the week marginally higher, as better-than-expected employment data was dwarfed by losses in financial stocks.
The Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite ticked up 9.84 points, or 0.06 percent to finish the week at 15,506.68 points. Eight of the ten sub-groups closed the day in positive territory.
Prior to markets opening, Statistics Canada reported that 15,300 jobs were added in February, thumping analyst expectations of 2,500 jobs created. With the total labour force declining by 19,600, the unemployment rate fell from 6.8 percent to 6.6 percent, tying Jan. 2015 for the lowest jobless rate since Oct. 2008.
During the month, 105,100 full-time jobs were added, while 89,800 part-time jobs were lost. By category, service producing added 30,100 jobs, while good producing declined 14,800.
Brian DePratto, Senior Economist at TD Economics is encouraged by the recent data.
"For the Bank of Canada, February's figures will undoubtedly be welcome," DePratto wrote in a report. "Today's report does to the mounting evidence that the Canadian economy is seeing a return to sustained healthy growth, which should absorb remaining slack and lead to eventual inflationary pressures," he continued.
However, DePratto does not anticipate any change in the overnight lending rate until 2018.
"This process will take time, however, and the Bank of Canada will want to continue supporting it and will likely be reluctant to raise rates until well into next year," he added.
During the trading day, the TSX Financials group was had the hardest, dropping 1.09 percent after a CBC report detailed that current and former employees of Toronto-Dominion (TD) Bank broken rules to meet their quotas. As a result of this news, shares of the country' s second largest lender were the most traded with volume of nearly 19.3 million. The stock closed the day at 66.00 Canadian dollars (49.02 U.S. dollars), a 5.55 percent dip.
Rivals of TD saw mixed results, as Toronto-based Royal Bank of Canada retreated 0.66 percent, while Montreal-based Bank of Montreal shares advanced 0.43 percent.
The only other group to finish the day lower was Energy, dropping 0.13 percent. The price of Brent crude oil continued to slump, losing 2.30 percent to close the day at 51.39 U.S. dollars for a barrel delivered in May. This marks the fourth straight day of losses and is the lowest closing rate since November last year. Subsequently, shares of Calgary-based Encana Corporation slipped 1.76 percent to 13.95 Canadian dollars (10.36 U.S. dollars), while Suncor Energy Inc. saw shares tick down 0.22 percent to 40.46 Canadian dollars (30.05 U.S. dollars).
On the bright side, there were four times as many winners on the day as losers. Materials and Health Care groups led the way with respective increases of 2.09 percent and 1.99 percent.
The TSX Materials group, which is comprised of producers of gold, precious metals, and raw materials, bounced back from a slump that saw the sector slip 12 of the past 18 sessions for a combined 11.83 percent loss.
The spot price of gold recovered from a five-week low to close at 1,204.50 U.S. dollars an ounce, 3.70 dollars higher. Gold miners B2Gold Corp. and Yamana Gold Inc. posted sharp gains of 7.49 percent and 5.36 percent, respectively.
Meanwhile, a pound of copper bounced back from a six-week low to 2.5938 U.S. dollars, a 0.73 percent rise. As a result, Vancouver-based Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. shares surged 11.35 percent to 4.22 Canadian dollars (3.13 U.S. dollars), while Toronto-based Lundin Mining shares jumped 2.02 percent to 7.59 Canadian dollars (5.64 U.S. dollars).
The remaining groups to come out ahead on Friday were: Consumer Discretionary (0.73 percent), Industrials (0.54 percent), Consumer Staples (0.47 percent), Utilities (0.45 percent), Telecommunications (0.37 percent), and Information Technology (0.32 percent).
The Canadian dollar jumped 0.25 cents to close the week at 0.7428 U.S. dollars.
