Toronto Stocks Edge Higher; Silvercorp Metals Down on Plans to Buy Adventus Mining

By Adriano Marchese

Toronto stocks inched forward in mid-trading Friday after Thursday when the indexes dropped and then recovered by the end of the day. Sector performance was skewed toward the gainers, with health tech, commercial services and materials stocks leading the pack. Consumer durable stocks lost the most in the session, followed more distantly by consumer services and transportation.

On the macroeconomic front, an advance estimate of Canadian wholesale trade indicates sales pulled back by 1.3% in March, led by a drop in motor vehicles and parts.

At midday, Canada's S&P/TSX Composite Index was up by 0.2% to 21923.59 and the blue-chip S&P/TSX 60 was up by 0.2% to 1313.57.

Shares of Silvercorp Metals were 6.4% lower at 4.53 Canadian dollars ($3.32) after it said it has agreed to acquire Adventus Mining in an all-stock transaction worth about C$200 million. Once the transaction closes, existing Silvercorp and Adventus shareholders will own about 81.6% and 18.4%, respectively.

Other market movers:

Imperial Oil earnings in the latest quarter declined due to a drop in downstream income that offset higher upstream production earnings. Shares were down 0.4% to C$96.97.

Write to Adriano Marchese at adriano.marchese@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 26, 2024 12:32 ET (16:32 GMT)

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