By Paul Vieira
Toronto stocks were higher Thursday mid-session in the first trading day of 2025, with BlackBerry hitting an intraday 52-week high on a brand relaunch and signs of increased economic activity in Canada's factory sector.
Canada's S&P/TSX Composite Index climbed 1% to 24985.26 and the blue-chip S&P/TSX 60 increased 1% to 1496.47. Sector performance was solid across the board, with health care, information technology and energy the biggest gainers on a percentage basis.
Shares of BlackBerry were up 3.5% in midday trading, to 5.65 Canadian dollars, or the equivalent of $3.93, after the Canadian technology company said it was renaming BlackBerry IoT to QNX, while at the same time relaunching the QNX brand. QNX is already a provider of real-time operating systems and has its technology embedded in more than 255 million vehicles on the road. In the coming months, additional platforms and products from the IoT business will be updated to the QNX brand, the company said.
On the macroenvironment front, activity at Canadian factories expanded in December to reach the highest level in two years, according to the S&P Global Market Intelligence. The increase is due in part to a weaker Canadian dollar and increased demand from U.S. customers as they look to add to inventories ahead of a possible 25% tariff on Canadian imports from President-elect Donald Trump.
Other market movers:
Shares in Thomson Reuters rose 1.1% to C$233.36, after it announced the acquisition of fin-tech company cPaperless.
Write to Paul Vieira at paul.vieira@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-02-25 1229ET