By Ragini Mathur and Fergal Smith
(Reuters) -Canada's main stock index rose on Tuesday in holiday-thinned trading as higher oil prices boosted energy shares, with the index adding to its gains over the previous two sessions to claw back some of its monthly decline.
The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index ended up 97.84 points, or 0.4%, at 24,846.82. Still, the index has lost 3.1% since the beginning of the month after notching in November its biggest monthly gain in a year.
"I think we borrowed earlier this year from the 'Santa Claus rally', meaning the gains you would normally have seen this time of year, we have probably already experienced those gains earlier in November," said Allan Small, senior investment adviser at Allan Small Financial Group with iA Private Wealth.
The "Santa Claus rally" refers to historically strong gains for the stock market in the last five trading days of the year combined with the first two of the following year.
Trading volumes were lighter than usual on Tuesday, and the market closed at 1:00 p.m. ET (1800 GMT), rather than its usual closing time of 4:00 p.m., ahead of the Christmas Day and Boxing Day holidays.
Eight of 10 major sectors on the TSX ended higher. They included a gain of 0.8% for the energy sector as the price of oil increased 1.2% to $70.04 a barrel.
Gold and copper prices also edged up. The materials group, which includes metal mining shares, added 0.2%.
Technology was up 0.9% as BlackBerry Ltd added to its recent gains. Shares of the systems software company rose 4.1% to the highest level since December 2023.
(Reporting by Fergal Smith in Toronto and Ragini Mathur in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Barbara Lewis)
