04:19 PM EDT, 08/12/2024 (MT Newswires) -- The Toronto Stock Exchange has completed a hat trick of winning sessions on Monday, rising for a third day on resource issues and big acquisition deals.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index closed up 87.63 points to 22,398.93. Energy led, advancing 3.0%, followed by Base Metals, up 1.09%. Information Technology, down 1.3% and Financials down 0.5%, were the biggest decliners on the day.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rose 4.2% Monday on heightened Middle East tensions, while OPEC lowered a rosy 2024 demand forecast it maintained for more than a year due to weak demand from China. WTI crude oil for September delivery closed up US$3.22 to settle at US$80.06 per barrel, while October Brent crude, the global benchmark, closed up US$2.64 to US$82.30.

Gold moved higher mid-afternoon on Monday as treasury yields gave up early gains and narrowed ahead of key U.S. economic data coming this week. Gold for December delivery was last seen up US$30.60 to US$2,504,00 per ounce.

The TSX was buoyed by not only commodity prices, but by a pair of separate deals involving three Canada listed companies. Osisko Mining (OSK.TO) jumped more than 60% after Gold Fields (GFI) moved to buy it for C$2.16 billion, on a consideration of C$4.90 in cash per Osisko share.

Tourmaline Oil (TOU.TO) rose more than 4% after saying it will buy Crew Energy ( CWEGF ) , which also rose more than 60% in the session, for $1.3 billion including debt.

Also on the deals front, Bank of Nova Scotia ( BNS ) said it will take a 14.9% stake in U.S. financial services company KeyCorp (KEY) for US$2.8 billion.

This comes as Rosenberg Research in its latest 'Strategizer' note looked at Canadian equities and the outlook for commodities. In Canada, Strategizer's view on the equity market "took a small step back" in July, falling to 45.2 from 53.4, the weaker side of neutral in modelling forward returns. Last month Rosenberg said the TSX should be on investors' radar. After a near 6% rally on the month, even with the recent volatility, it said technical indicators were the primary reason for the change - "becoming more overbought; contrarian negative."

The research noted earnings estimates for 2024 and 2025 EPS continue to stabilize after a prior period of decline, but do not show signs of an uptrend. It said economic stress needs to be monitored as well. And it added insofar as its commodity model proves to be correct, this should help further boost the outlook for the resource-heavy index.

"Time is required to evaluate future model scores, but Strategizer remains 'neutral' at this time."

At the sector level, Rosenberg Research noted, only Industrials dropped out of the top rankings from the prior month. Financials (#1 from #3), Energy (#2 from #2), Materials (#3 from #4), and Health Care (#4 from #2) remained the same.

Rosenberg said its commodity model score was little changed in July - inching to 70.7 from 70.8 prior and remaining near a six-month high in the process. It noted commodity prices have been 'front and center' when it comes to global demand concerns, with the CRB index slumping to a 4-month low. The research said: "While the short-term price action has been warranted (China's weakness cannot be ignored completely) - the median measure across underlying components of medium-term supply/demand in our model has eased to just a 35th percentile reading - the pullback has left the commodity space under-owned and unloved (contrarian positives).

"In short, there is lots of negativity currently 'in the price'."

It added that the rising prospect of a weaker U.S. dollar is an added tailwind to the outlook, as is gold.

"Combined with the secular bullish backdrop present in many commodity markets, our model continues to maintain a modest "overweight" view, though near-term volatility cannot be ruled out completely," the research added.

According to the research, individual commodities that screen the best include agricultural/food products (cocao, soybeans) as well as energy components (RBOB gasoline).

On gold, Rosenberg Research said rising global market volatility, geopolitical instability, and looming Fed rate cuts all help to support the outlook for the metal, with its model's score improving for the third straight month (to 43.7 from 39.9). The research added the only impediment to a higher score is lingering crowding evident in its positioning, sentiment, and technical indicators ("contrarian negatives") - though, it noted, recent consolidation around US$2,350 per ounce has helped improve this. As such, and with the structural bull market intact after first flipping "overweight" on gold back in October (+30% since then), Strategizer continues to keep at "hold" at this time.