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The S&P/TSX composite index opened above 15,000 on Friday as a rise in commodity prices helped fuel a rally.

Oil hit another record high, nearing US$128 a barrel, and gold jumped back above $900 an ounce for the first time in three weeks.

Year-to-date, the S&P/TSX composite is up about 8%, mostly due to strong performances by resource stocks, such as Canadian Natural Resources, Suncor, Potash, and Barrick.

And financials have recovered from their January lows, gaining about 16% over the last two months.

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Compensation for American CEOs Declines

The total compensation for chief executive officers in the United States is declining as companies have heard the message that pay should be linked to performance, concludes a study by Mercer.

For CEOs of the top 50 companies analyzed, median total direct compensation for 2007 was just under US$14 million, which represented a 15.8% reduction from the previous year.

CEOs of large companies received median total direct compensation of about $9.4 million—essentially unchanged from 2006 and CEOs of mid-size companies had median total direct compensation of $4.7 million, a 4.6% reduction from the previous year.

“Uneasy with the market’s volatility, companies are taking a hard look at the drivers of long-term economic value, reassessing performance metrics and realigning variable compensation with financial, strategic and operational measures instead of more traditional metrics such as ‘earnings’,” says Mike Halloran, a senior executive compensation consultant with Mercer.

The study was based upon analysis of the latest proxy filings of 350 companies within the Fortune 1000.