Traders work in the Merrill Lynch booth on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)Spencer Platt
The Toronto stock market posted a modest gain Monday as further weakness in the U.S. dollar boosted commodity prices.
The S&P/TSX composite index rose 33.63 points to 11,538.39 as the main index also received support from the financial sector.
The TSX Venture Exchange was up 7.2 points to 1,338.77.
Potash Corp. was also a source of lift on the TSX, rising after Bank of America Merrill Lynch said that BHP Billiton, the world's biggest mining company, could boost earnings and cut excess cash by purchasing the Canadian fertilizer giant at a 30 per cent premium to the share price.
"This is just part of what you always see at a time when demand is strong or companies are trying to position themselves well for future growth," said Kate Warne, Canadian markets specialist at Edward Jones in St. Louis.
"It's not too surprising that you might see a variety of companies thinking that being in, not just industrial metals and precious metals, but in agricultural commodities as well, would be a logical thing to do."
The base metals sector rose 0.33 per cent amid reassurances from a top Chinese economic official that his country's economic growth is on track. Xiong Bilin, a deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, said the country would surpass its growth target of 8 per cent this year.
"As long as people believe that China is continuing to grow at that kind of pace, it will lead to expectations of stronger resource usage in the future," added Ms. Warne.
The December copper contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange gained 12.1 cents (U.S.) to $2.97 a pound.
The TSX energy sector was up 0.19 per cent Monday as the November crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose $1.08 to $79.61 a barrel. Oil has risen sharply following a report last Thursday which showed an unexpected drawdown of gasoline inventories, pushing crude prices to their highest levels in a year.
The TSX tech sector was the leading TSX decliner, down 0.64 per cent.
The gold sector also lost ground even as the December bullion contract climbed $6.60 to $1,058.10 an ounce.
A day before the Bank of Canada makes its next announcement on interest rates, weakness in the greenback sent the Canadian dollar up to 97.15 cents from 96.32 cents on Friday. The central bank is expected to leave its key rate unchanged at 0.25 per cent.
New York markets were up sharply after a handful of earnings reports revived hopes that the economy is improving.
Industrial equipment maker Eaton Corp. said it was seeing improvement in key markets and raised its full-year profit forecast. Newspaper publisher Gannett Co. managed to post a profit despite a sharp fall in revenue, and Hasbro Inc.'s income rose on cost cuts.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 96.28 points to 10,092.19. The Nasdaq composite index moved 19.52 points higher to 2,176.32 ahead of earnings being released later in the day by Apple Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc., while the S&P 500 index was up 10.23 points to 1,097.91.
Burt White, chief investment officer at LPL Financial in Boston, noted that three of every four U.S. companies so far have topped analysts' expectations for earnings in the July-September quarter. Mr. White says that's a sign that the economy is doing better than most investors had predicted.
"The recovery is moving faster than analysts can sharpen their pencils and revise their estimates upward," he said.