By Jeff Sanford

(May 18 – 17:10 ET) – North American markets held onto their gains today, making a positive end to a strong week. Both the NASDAQ composite index and the Dow Jones industrial index added just over 4% this week.

Today, the Dow gained 53.16 points to close at 11301.74, while the NASDAQ gained 5.20 points to close at 2198.88. In Canada, the Toronto Stock Exchange 300 composite index opened low and stayed there through the morning, before gaining sharply through the afternoon to finish the day up 41.61 points at 8270.60.

The gains came mainly from the gold sector which was up 5% on the day. Oil and gas helped with a gain of 1.5%. Industrial products only gained 0.8%. But the trend among sub-indices was negative, with nine of fourteen sectors closing in the red. Volume was relatively light at 172million shares. Market trend among individual issues was positive with 661 gaining on the day and 455 declining.

Kinross gold was the most popular issue on the day. It traded over 9 million shares and ended the day up 11.54% at $1.45. Other golds in the top ten included Barrick, up 4.85% at $29.20 and Placer, up 4.35% at $18.70.

Actually, anything attached to the word “gold” did well today. Echo Bay mines was the leader in the sector, gaining 25.2% to close at $1.74. Eldorado Gold added 15.38%, climbing to 60¢. South American Gold added12.50% to 9¢. Bema Gold put on 20.43% to close at 56¢.

Nortel was second on the “most active” list with a gain of 2.16% to close at $22.20. 360Networks was also popular, though more so among sellers. It continued to drop and ended the day off another 10.63% at $1.85.

Sherritt continued to advance, after making good gains through the week. It was up another 6.51% to close at $5.07. ATI, which has a hand in designing the new Nintendo unit, unveiled at a gaming conference this week, was up 17.89% at $11.73.

An announcement by AOL that it has agreed to buy Canadian internet services firm, InfoInteractive Inc., sent shares in that company up a whopping 40.67% to close at $2.11.

The CDNX also had a good day. It gained 43.76 points to end the week at 3275.78. That was on extra heavy volume of 51 million shares. Advancers, handily outpaced decliners, 300 to 203.

The Canadian dollar finished off a week of steady advances with another gain today. It added 0.21% to end the week at US65.28¢.