The Toronto Stock Exchange clinched its sixth straight day of gains on Wednesday, the longest run in about seven months, as a slew of earnings from both Canada and the United States came in better than expected.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 49.11 points, or 0.42 per cent, to 11,635.49, with financials leading the way.
It marks the longest winning streak on the TSX since it went six days with gains from July 13-20.
The TSX Venture composite was down 1.42 points, or 0.09 per cent, to 1,518.72, marking its first loss in eight days.
Gains on the main TSX were reduced from earlier on Wednesday when it charged ahead by more than 100 points in morning trading.
Ian Nakamoto, director of research at MacDougall, MacDougall & MacTier, attributed the reduced rise to profit-taking, given Bay Street's extended streak as of late.
"We've had a pretty good lift in most of these share prices, so I think people are just sort of taking a 'bird in the hand is worth two in the bush' mentality," he said. "We had a bit of a lift up and they're taking some profits."
Nakamoto said there's still uncertainty surrounding the overall strength of the economic recovery globally, as well as the government debt situation in Greece and other European countries.
However, he noted that corporate earnings, for the most part, are coming in strong.
Rogers Communications Inc. beat expectations with its quarterly earnings on Wednesday, as did Loblaw Cos. Ltd. and WestJet Airlines Ltd., even though the latter two recorded significant dips in profit compared to a year earlier. At the end of the day, Rogers' stock had lost 4.58 per cent, while Loblaw was up 2.93 per cent and WestJet was ahead 1.23 per cent.
In the U.S., better-than-expected results came from Deere & Co., the maker of John Deere tractors, among other things. Its stock was up 5.02 per cent in New York.
Also on Wednesday, Statistics Canada said wholesale transactions were up 0.7 per cent to $42.8 billion in December.
And the latest data from the Canadian Real Estate Association showed housing resales down 2.8 per cent on a seasonally adjusted basis in January from December, but up 58 per cent on an unadjusted basis from January 2009. The average home price was $328,537, up 19.6 per cent from a year earlier.
On the commodities market, crude oil was up 32 cents to $77.33 U.S. a barrel, while gold rose 30 cents to $1,120.10 U.S. an ounce.
The Canadian dollar was down 15 basis points to 95.68 cents U.S..
On U.S. markets, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 40.43 points, or 0.39 per cent, to 10,309.24. The Nasdaq composite index rose 12.1 points, or 0.55 per cent, to 2,226.29.
Data for housing starts and industrial production in the U.S. in January came in better than expected Wednesday.
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