The Toronto Stock Exchange Broadcast Centre in Toronto.MARK BLINCH
The Toronto stock market kicked off 2010 trading Monday with a solid advance as encouraging manufacturing data from the U.S. and China sent commodity prices higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 120.79 points to 11,866.9 as the Institute for Supply Management's U.S. manufacturing index rose to a better-than-expected 55.9 last month from 53.6 in November.
A figure above 50 indicates expansion and the bigger the difference, the faster the expansion.
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Other data showed China's manufacturing sector expanded at its fastest rate in 20 months in December.
The monthly purchasing managers' index - a key gauge of activity for the 16 countries that use the euro - rose to a 21-month high of 51.6, while the equivalent survey for Britain rose to a 25-month high of 54.1.
"I think you have all the pieces," said Kate Warne, Canadian markets specialist at Edward Jones in St. Louis.
"The news is better than expected on the economy and certainly in the U.S. and China, which are both global growth drivers. And I think that's what everybody is watching, so we have commodities higher and no surprise the TSX is up as well."
The Canadian dollar jumped 0.87 of a cent to 96.02 cents (U.S.).
The economic reports follow an impressive end to the 2009 trading year that saw the main Toronto index up 31 per cent - its best one-year gain since 1979. The Dow Jones industrials ran ahead 19 per cent, the tech-heavy Nasdaq 44 per cent and the S&P 500 index jumped 23 per cent as investors hope a solid economic recovery is taking place.
The Toronto base metals sector advanced 4.29 per cent as the March copper contract was rose 6 cents to $3.41 a pound. Workers at Chile's largest copper mine went on strike after rejecting a last-minute pay offer from the mining company Codelco, which is the world's largest copper producer. The Chuquicamata mine is one of the world's largest open-pit operations and it produces about half of Codelco's output.
Codelco as a whole produces about 4 per cent of the world's copper.
The TSX gold sector gained 2.37 per cent as the February gold contract on the Nymex moved ahead $22.10 an ounce to $1,118.30.
TSX energy stocks rose 2.29 per cent as the weaker greenback and bullish economic data pushed oil prices past the $81 a barrel level.
The February crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange was $2.15 higher to $81.51 a barrel - almost double the price of a year ago.
The TSX Venture Exchange gained 22.41 points to 1,543.13.
Reports of stronger manufacturing activity sent New York markets sharply higher amid other economic data showing that construction activity fell for a seventh consecutive month as spending on both residential and commercial projects declined.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 155.91 points to 10,583.96.
The Nasdaq composite index climbed 39.27 points to 2,308.42 and the S&P 500 index was 17.89 points higher to 1,132.99.