Stocks jumped at the start of trading on Monday morning, shaking off last week's stock market setback as investors embraced Germany's support of boosting the size of the euro-zone's financial firewall.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index moved higher by 70.37 points to start a new week at 12,536.03
The Canadian dollar gained 0.63 cents at 100.85 cents U.S.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Sunday that the structure of Glencore's $6.1-billion deal to buy grain handler Viterra means it should not necessarily be seen as a full foreign takeover.
Elsewhere in Canada, Manulife Financial Corp. rose 1.6% and Royal Bank of Canada rose 0.7%. Among commodity producers, Suncor Energy Inc. rose 0.7% and Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. rose 0.2%, but Barrick Gold Corp. fell 0.2%
SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. fell 2% after its chief executive resigned amid allegations he allowed improper payments.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange picked up 26.76 points to 1,582.28, while the Nasdaq Canada index gained 4.45 points to 415.32
All but one of the 14 Toronto subgroups were positive to start the day. Health-care stocks were 1.3% more robust, while industrials and materials rocketed 0.9% higher each.
Only a 0.04% drop by information technology kept things from being unanimous.
ON WALLSTREET
In New York, stocks were higher early Monday as Fed chairman Ben Bernanke's comments on the job market gave investors reason to believe interest rates will stay low.
The Dow Jones Industrials improved 131.38 points, or 1%, to begin the session at 13,212.10
The S&P 500 strengthened 14.35 points to 1,411.46, while the Nasdaq leaped 33.23 points to 3,101.15
The gains were broad-based, with all but one of the 30 Dow components rising. United Technologies, Pfizer and Exxon were among the early leaders on the blue-chip index. Verizon was the sole decliner.
Shares of Lions Gate Entertainment were up 4% after a gangbusters opening weekend for the studio's post-apocalyptic teen death match film "The Hunger Games."
Shares of Arena Pharmaceuticals surged after European regulators approved a marketing application for the company's weight loss drug.
BATS Global Markets, an equities and options exchange operator, issued an apology Sunday after technical glitches forced it to withdraw its initial public offering Friday.
In an address Monday to the National Association for Business Economics, the Federal Reserve chairman said that while recent jobs data have been positive, "the better jobs numbers seem somewhat out of sync with the overall pace of economic expansion."
The comments raised hopes the central bank is prepared to keep interest rates low for an extended period of time.
In matters economic, pending home sales for February are expected to have increased by 0.5%, after ticking up by 2% in January, according to a survey of analysts by Briefing.com.
The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury swooned, pushing the yield up to 2.27% from 2.24% Friday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil for May delivery gained five cents to $106.92 U.S. a barrel.
Gold futures for April delivery fell $19.80 to $1,682.10 U.S. an ounce.
