TSX Ends Notably Higher As Materials, Bank Stocks Rally

(RTTNews) - After a buoyant start and a subsequent fall to lower levels, the Canadian stock market moved in a tight band past noon. However, it remained firmly in positive territory right till the closing bell to eventually close on a solid note on Tuesday.

Fairly strong Canadian GDP data, optimism about coronavirus vaccine, upbeat Chinese factory data and firm bullion prices helped keep investor sentiment bullish.

Materials and financial shares were the star performers in the session. Healthcare stocks tumbled, while shares from energy, information technology, industrials and consumer discretionary sections turned in a mixed performance.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index, which was up nearly 220 points at 17,471.20 at one stage, ended the day with a gain of 106.68 points or 0.62% at 17,296.93.

The index had ended more than 2% down on Monday, snapping a seven-day winning run.

The Capped Materials Index climbed 2.62%. Torex Gold Resources (TXG.TO) and Eldorado Gold (ELD.TO) spurted 12.1% and 10.5%, respectively. Osisko Mining (OSK.TO) and MAG Silver (MAG.TO) both ended stronger by over 9%, while OceanaGold (OGC.TO) ended 0.8% up. Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM.TO), Ssr Mining (SSRM.TO), Hudbay Minerals (HBM.TO), Yamana Gold (YRI.TO) and Canfor Corp (CFP.TO) were among the other major gainers in the section.

Among bank stocks, Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO) gained nearly 3.5%. The BMO Group reported net income of $1,584 million or $2.37 per share for the fourth quarter of 2020. Adjusted net income for the quarter was $2.41 per share in the latest quarter, compared with $2.43 in the prior year.

Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS.TO) ended 2.85% up. The bank announced a dividend of C$0.90 per share on the outstanding common shares of the Bank, payable January 27, 2021, to shareholders of record at the close of business on January 5, 2021.

Laurentian Bank (LB.TO), CDN Western Bank (CWB.TO), National Bank of Canada (NA.TO) and Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD.TO) gained 2 to 2.6%.

In the healthcare section, Aurora Cannabis (ACB.TO) plunged more than 17%. Aphria Inc. (APHA.TO) shed about 9.1%, Cronos Group (CRON.TO) tumbled 8.4%, Trillium Therapeutics (TRIL.TO) slid nearly 8% and Canopy Growth Corp (WEED.TO) ended lower by 7.5%.

Among energy stocks, ARC Resources (ARX.TO), MEG Energy (MEG.TO) and Enerplus Corp (ERF.TO) declined sharply, while Imperial Oil (IMO.TO) and Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ.TO) ended with strong gains.

Technology stock BlackBerry soared more than 60% by noon, but pared most of its gains as the session progressed, but still ended nearly 20% up from previous close. The stock rose following the company signing a multiyear agreement with Amazon Web Services to develop and market its "Intelligent Vehicle Data Platform," called IVY.

Data released by Statistics Canada a little while ago shows Canada's GDP expanded 8.9% in the third quarter of this year. Annualized GDP growth in Canada increased to 40.5% in the third quarter of 2020 from -38.1% in the second quarter of 2020.

The Canadian economy grew 0.8% over a month earlier in September, following a downwardly revised 0.9% expansion in the previous month.

The IHS Markit Canada Manufacturing PMI edged up to 55.8 in November of 2020 from 55.5 in October, pointing to strong factory growth for the 5th month.

In vaccine news, Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. and German biotech firm BioNTech SE have submitted a formal Application for Conditional Marketing Authorization or CMA for their mRNA -based COVID-19 vaccine candidate, BNT162b2, to the European Medicines Agency or EMA.

The companies hope that a CMA could potentially enable the use of BNT162b2 in Europe before the end of 2020.