TSX Recovers After Early Setback, Ends Marginally Up

(RTTNews) - After opening modestly lower and drifting down further Friday morning, the Canadian market recovered gradually and finally ended the day's session marginally up.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index, which dropped to 20,484.50 in early trades, ended with a small gain of 14.37 points or 0.07% at 20,612.12. The index gained about 0.7% in the week.

Energy, utilities and industrials shares posted strong gains. Several stocks from consumer staples section too ended notably higher.

Consumer discretionary, technology, materials and healthcare stocks drifted lower.

In addition to digesting the jobs data, investors also reacted to a slew of quarterly earnings announcements.

The Capped Energy Index surged 2.41%. The Consumer Discretionary Capped Index drifted down 4.3%. The Information Technology Capped Index dropped 1.83%.

Enbridge Inc. (ENB.TO) reported that its fourth quarter adjusted earnings per common share declined to C$0.63 from C$0.68, prior year. Adjusted profit declined to C$1.27 billion from C$1.38 billion. The stock gained about 2.4%.

Magna International Inc. (MG.TO) shares plunged 17% after the company reported fourth-quarter net income of $95 million, compared with net income of $464 million in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted earnings per share were $0.91, compared to prior year's $1.30.

Fortis Inc. (FTS.TO) shares gained about 3.3%. The company reported fourth quarter net earnings of C$370 million or C$0.77 per share, up from C$328 million or C$0.63 per share in the prior-year quarter.

Data from Statistics Canada showed that the employment increased by 150,000 jobs in January, after rising by 104,000 jobs in the previous month. Economists had expected employment to climb by 15,000 jobs.

The unemployment rate held steady at 5% in January. The rate was expected to rise to 5.1%.