North American stocks ended Thursday with slight gains, driven largely by surging energy stocks.
The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 10,255.28, up 5.74 points, or less than 0.1 per cent. The broader S&P 500 closed at 1102.83, up 4.45 points, or 0.4 per cent. In Canada, the S&P/TSX composite index closed at 11,811.87, up 31.20 points or 0.3 per cent.
In both the U.S. and Canada, energy stocks were the big movers after the price of crude oil continued its recent rebound, rising to $74.61 (U.S.) a barrel, up $1.75. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. rose 2.9 per cent and Canadian Oil Sands Trust rose 1.6 per cent. In New York, Exxon Mobil Corp. rose 1.3 per cent and BP PLC - the company held responsible for the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico - rose 4.3 per cent.
However, this was not a broader commodities charge. Materials were among the biggest laggards, tumbling more than 1 per cent in both Canada and the United States, with gold producers and base metals miners contributing to the declines. Barrick Gold Corp. fell 1.6 per cent and Teck Resource Ltd. fell 2.6 per cent.
Meanwhile, technology stocks were generally strong, with Cisco Systems Inc. up 1.6 per cent and Microsoft Corp. up 1.5 per cent.
The modest stock market gains come ahead of one of the most anticipated economic reports of the week: On Friday morning, the U:.S. Labour Department will release its non-farm payrolls numbers for May, along with the unemployment rate - numbers that investors can easily digest and look for signs that the recent turnaround in the U.S. economy is at last generating jobs.
For sure, expectations are high: Economists believe the U.S. economy generated 536,000 jobs, 180,000 of them in the private sector. Last month, the Labour Department reported job gains of 290,000.