Bourse: gains at mid-session, La Baie still loses 9%

The North American exchanges have erased their initial losses and rise at mid-day, before the opening of the business results season later in the week.

Here is the situation before midday:

In Toronto, the S & P TSX rose 0.39% or 60 points to 15449

In New York, the S & P 500 rose 0.36% or 8 points to 2276

The Dow Jones takes 0.25% or 49 points to 19937

The Nasdaq advanced by 0.54% or 29 points to 5561

The Canadian dollar adds 0.15% to 75.76 cents US

Gold rises 0.24% to US $ 1187

The barrel of crude WTI yields 0.65% to 51,62 $ US

In Toronto, the healthcare sector posted the largest increase, at 2.19%. Conversely, the sector of essential consumption fell by 0.30%.

Titles in action

Among the titles in action, the pharmaceutical Laval Valeant (Tor. VRX) is 6% after making two transactions to reduce its debt, including the sale of three brands the French cosmetics giant L’Oreal. Read our text on this subject.

Gildan (Tor., GIL) won the auction for the takeover of bankrupt retailer American Apparel assets, according to Reuters. The amount extended by the Montreal company would amount to US $ 88 million. Gildan does not buy stores but will instead manage the apparel brand and some manufacturing activities. The stock wins 2.9%.

Vishal Shreedhar of National Bank Financial, increased its target for the title of La Baie (Tor., HBC) $ 17 to $ 15, while maintaining its neutral recommendation. HBC unveiled preliminary fourth quarter results lower than analyst expectations. Consolidated comparable sales for the first nine weeks of the quarter ended December decreased 0.7%, while Financial forecast an increase of 1.2%. The share lost another 9%, thus reaching an annual low.

Sara O’Brien of RBC Capital Markets, because of the engineering firm montrélaise Genivar (Tor., WSP) his best investment idea for 2017. It reiterated its outperform recommendation for the title and its target of $ 52. Li sez titles to watch on WSP

Exfo (Tor. EXF) unveils its first quarter results after the close of stock markets.

Monday, the New York Stock Exchange had already finished without direction, being cautious after its sharp rise at the beginning of the year: the Dow Jones had lost 0.38% but the Nasdaq had taken 0.19%.

“US equity markets are moving close to equilibrium in early trading with few catalysts to keep the recent rise on track,” Charles Schwab’s brokers said in a note.

As on the previous day, in this general wait-and-see context, Nasdaq, which had taken less advantage of the post-election rise, seemed to be catching up and was doing better than other indices.

In addition to new indications on the state of the US economy that will not come before the second half of the week, investors seem eager to see what tone will be printed by the release of results from several major banks on Friday.

For now, “a lot of warnings on results or turnover from the consumer sector have reduced the enthusiasm of potential buyers,” Patrick O’Hare of Briefing reported in a note.

The bond market was undecided, with the 10-year Treasury yield showing at 2.368% as of Monday night, and the 30-year bonds rising slightly to 2.969% from 2.961% previously.