It was another green day on Bay Street as the TSX jumped 56 points with eight of the index’s 11 sectors trading higher.
The heavyweight energy sector moved up 1.5 percent as oil prices rose 45 cents to $45.06 US a barrel.
Despite the uptick in price, oversupply has pushed benchmark prices to near their lowest levels in more than a year, according to CNBC.
Energy stocks were popular today, spearheaded by a 12.8 percent lift in Birchcliff Energy shares.
In New York, the Dow flip-flopped to cap a wild week of trading on Wall Street.
The exchange couldn’t sustain double digit gains in the afternoon and ended 76 points lower.
At one point the index shot up more than 230 points and looked on pace to cap its first week of gains in December.
But the market was pressured by the sixth day of a partial government shutdown, and President Donald Trump stirring up anxiety by threatening to shut down the southern border unless his demands for $5 billion to help build a wall separating the U.S. and Mexico are met.
The Nasdaq managed to edge five points above the flat line with strong gains in market movers Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Tesla.
Tesla surged five percent after the electric car maker named Oracle founder Larry Ellison to its board as an independent director.
The loonie was off by 13/100ths of a cent to $0.7329 US, while gold gained $1.90 to $1,283 an ounce.
Elsewhere, a Canadian cannabis producer’s stock rose sharply in the wake of a $2.8 billion takeover bid by Ohio-based Green Growth Brands.
Aphria Inc. was easily the second most heavily traded company on the TSX, and its shares jumped 12.5 percent on the news.
In a release, Aphria board chair Irwin Simon said the bid “falls short of rewarding our shareholders for participating in such a transaction,” adding that the move is “quite risky.”
