Canada Stocks to Top U.S., Manulife’s Petursson Says

Canadian stocks will outperform the U.S. for a seventh year in 2010, spurred by demand for oil and metals, according to Philip Petursson, director of institutional equities at North America’s largest insurer.

The S&P/Toronto Stock Exchange index may beat the S&P 500 by 4 to 6 percentage points, led by commodity companies, which make up almost half of the Canadian gauge, Petursson said. He helps manage about C$287 billion ($272.1 billion) for MFC Global Asset Management, a unit of Manulife Financial Corp.

Investors’ demand for riskier assets helped push Canada’s benchmark index up 32 percent last year, surpassing the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, which added 23 percent, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Canada has attracted investors who seek to gain from growth in emerging markets without the political risk of direct investments there, Petursson said (more)