Gold stocks kept the Toronto stock market in the black on Tuesday, while a disappointing earnings update from Texas Instruments Inc. and oil prices rising past US$55 per barrel pushed U.S. markets lower.

At close, the S&P/TSX composite was up 17.25 points or 0.17% to 9903.34 and the TSX Venture Exchange was down 21.90 points or 1.07% at 2018.39. Volume on the S&P/TSX composite was 356.4 million vs 111.1 million on Monday.

Wall Street’s Dow industrial average lost 24.24 points or 0.22% to 10912.62. The Nasdaq slid 16.66 points or 0.8% at 2073.55, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index gave up 5.88 points or 0.48% to 1219.43.

The Canadian dollar was up more than a full U.S. cent in late trading as another bout of turbulence hit the American currency. The C$ was up 1¢ to US82.36¢ – after going as high as 82.41 cents. The greenback continues to fall from favour in the wake of last Friday’s February U.S. payrolls report – and ahead of the latest data of the U.S. trade deficit due out on Friday.

On the TSX, gold stocks got a lift from rising gold prices — spot prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange were up $5.30 to US$440.30. The TSX gold subgroup kept the market above water, adding 2.73%. Among the bigger jumps was by Goldcorp Inc., newly merged with Wheaton River Minerals, which was up 65¢ or 3.7% to $18.15.

Wheaton River chief Ian Telfer, recently appointed president and CEO of Goldcorp, told a conference call with analysts that he expects the price of gold to remain between US$400 and US$500 per ounce this year.

Energy stocks slipped 0.21% even as crude prices edged higher. Light sweet crude gained 70¢ in late New York trading, settling at US$54.59 on the NYMEX after reaching a high of US$55.15 earlier in the afternoon.

Financial shares added 0.24%. But technology stocks fell 0.75% despite a 2.01% jump in value of Research In Motion, whose stocks has taken a hit of late over worries about sales of its Blackberry product. Late on Tuesday, RIM was up $161 to $77.84.

On Wall Street, semiconductor stocks fell after Texas Instruments cut its earnings forecasts, leading investors to worry about increasing inventories and lagging sales in much of the tech sector. Texas Instruments lost $1.03 or 3.76% to US$26.34.

With little other announcements and no economic data to report, oil prices were one of the few indicators available to investors, and the news wasn’t good, as crude oil futures at one point reached the highest levels in more than four months.

Bonds fell along with stocks, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rising to 4.38% from 4.31% late Monday. The dollar dropped against the euro and the Japanese yen, while gold prices moved higher.