(Updates throughout with analyst comment, market reaction,
details)
* TSX up 102.45 points, or 0.76 percent, to 13,647.7
* Nine of the TSX's 10 main groups rose
By Solarina Ho
TORONTO, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index
rallied more than 1 percent on Thursday as energy stocks tracked
rebounding crude prices and markets digested this week's
domestic economic data.
A pledge by the European Central Bank to keep monetary
policy loose helped prop up crude prices more than 3 percent,
while closed markets in China due to a public holiday also
helped stabilize the volatile commodity. O/R
Energy stocks climbed 1.8 percent, aided by Suncor Energy
Inc SU.TO , which rose 1.4 percent to C$35.48 to lead the index
gainers.
Heavily-weighted financial firms, which have deep ties with
oil and gas companies, also made gains, climbing 0.9 percent.
Bank of Nova Scotia BNS.TO rose 1.6 percent to C$59.32.
At 11:32 a.m. EDT (1532 GMT), the Toronto Stock Exchange's
S&P/TSX composite index .GSPTSE rose 102.45 points, or 0.76
percent, to 13,647.7. Earlier in the session, the index had
touched a high of 13,706.76.
Technology stocks were the only losers among the index's 10
main sectors, falling 0.3 percent.
Earlier in the week, gross domestic product data showed
Canadian economic activity in June grew by a
better-than-expected 0.5 percent, while Thursday's trade data
showed the country's export sector helped cut Canada's trade
deficit to an eight-month low of C$593 million, significantly
less than the C$1.30 billion economists had forecast.
"People might be reading through the technical recession ...
and some of that positivity is showing itself in the market
today," said Bryden Teich, associate portfolio manager at Avenue
Investment Management, referring to the recession Canada's
economy entered in the first half of the year.
Teich cautioned however, that the uncertainty and market
volatility seen in recent weeks will likely remain for now, as
worries over China's economy, what the Federal Reserve will
decide at its next meeting later this month, and Friday's U.S.
and Canadian employment figures remain in focus.
"A lot of it will come down to what the Fed does when they
make their decision in a couple of weeks. There's a lot of
uncertainty," said Teich.
On the earnings front, Sears Canada SCC.TO shares rose 0.9
percent to C$8.55 after the struggling retailer posted a smaller
operating loss and the slowest decline in comparable stores
sales in six quarters.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the TSX by
184 to 60, for a 3.07-to-1 ratio on the upside.