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The TSX over the past month

North American markets roared ahead Wednesday morning after the U.S. government reported that orders for durable goods were much stronger in May than expected.

The statistic is a key indicator of business investment and a bullish signal.

Toronto received an extra boost as shares in Addax Petroleum surged on news that a Chinese company was buying Addax for $8.27 billion.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 223 points at 10,121 in noon trading.

All the TSX sub-indexes were up, with energy and diversified metals posting the biggest percentage gains.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial index was up 71 points to 8,394, and the Nasdaq index had gained 38 points to 1,803.

The U.S. Commerce Department said Wednesday that demand for durable goods rose 1.8 per cent last month, far better than the 0.6 per cent decline that economists expected. It also matched the rise in April, with both months posting the best performance since December 2007, when the recession began.

The stock market’s gains Wednesday reclaimed some of the ground lost Monday, when Toronto fell 453 points, dragged down by falling commodity prices and a World Bank report warning that the international economy will shrink further this year than the bank forecast in March.

“Look, there are no fundamentals to this market — it’s all trading on sentiment,” said John Stephenson, portfolio manager at First Asset Funds Inc.

With files from The Canadian Press