TORONTO - Deal-making, earnings news and U.S. jobs data that blew past expectations combined to push the Toronto stock market higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index gained 101.08 points to 14,765.15, while the Canadian dollar moved down 0.16 of a cent to 91.07 cents US.
New York's Dow Jones industrials fell 45.98 points to 16,512.89 even as data showed that the American economy cranked out 288,000 jobs in April, considerably more than the 200,000 or so that economists had expected. Also, the jobless rate fell from 6.7 per cent to 6.3 per cent, although as the labour force participation rate fell to just 62.8 per cent in April from 63.2 per cent and there was a decline of 73,000 in employment.
The Nasdaq was down 3.55 points to 4,123.9 and the S&P 500 index dipped 2.54 points to 1,881.14
Some analysts attributed the tepid session in New York to nervousness over the worsening situation in Ukraine.
Shares in Torstar Corp. jumped 22 per cent as the company struck deal to sell its Harlequin book publishing company, best known for romance novels, to U.S. based News Corp. for $455 million.