Some surprisingly good economic news gave the Toronto Stock Exchange a shot in the arm today. After opening low, better than expected retail and trade numbers sent the index up from midday through the rest of the day. By the end of the session, the 300 composite index was up 31 points to 7707.

Among the sub-sectors, market trend was slightly positive with eight sub-sectors ahead on the day and six down. Utilities and industrial products were furthest up on the day, climbing 2.1% and 2% respectively. Also up were consumer products, financial services and pipelines.

The downside was led by a 3.4% loss in the oil and gas sector. Gold and paper products dropped 1.6%.

Nortel bounced a bit today, after a heck of ride down. It gained 46¢ to close at $12.76. Also in the IP sector, itemus bounced after steep declines over the past week. It was up 3¢ to close at 11.5¢. Both were heavily traded today. Also doing well in the techs were JDS Uniphase. It climbed 6.53% to $17.79. RIM rose 6.31% to $45.17 and Celestica added 6.18% to end the day at $65.30.

Outside of some action in penny stocks and the techs, markets were relatively flat. In fact, market trend among individual issues was quite negative: 602 issues declined and only 472 advanced. Volume today was 186 million shares traded.

The CDNX was also flat. It closed up 1 point at 3243. Volume was light at 33.7 million shares. Market trend was also negative even though there was a gain on the day, with 221 issues declining and only 199 advancing.

The good macro-economic news seemed to help out the Canadian dollar, which jumped over a half cent today to close at US65.62¢, a gain of 0.69%.

In the U.S. markets were also up. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 68 points on the day to close at 10715. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 28 points to close at 2059 and the S&P 500 rose 14 points to close at 1237.