Toronto stocks continued their fall Wednesday, though not to the same extent as the previous session, as commodity prices retreated.

The S&P/TSX composite index fell 82.18, or 0.70%, to 11,735.12, a day after the index lost 263.23. On Monday, the index had broken through the 12,000-point plateau to hit an all-time high.

Volume on the senior exchange was 407 million shares.

Six of the 10 TSX main sub-groups were down.

The energy group fell 1.90%

Oil futures fell 54¢ at US$62.55 a barrel on news that U.S. crude inventories fell 318,000 barrels, but gasoline inventories increased a greater-than-expected 4.3 million barrels.

Nexen Inc. dropped $2.34, or 3.73%, to $60.44.

The materials sector 0.22%.

The benchmark April contract for gold fell $1 at $553.80 an ounce.

Bema Gold Corp. lifted 10¢, or 2.20%, to $4.65.

Nortel Networks Corp. proposed to pay US$2.5 billion in cash and stock to settle two lawsuits in the U.S. over an accounting scandal in 2004. Nortel shares fell 3¢, or 0.86%, to $3.44.

The S&P/TSX Venture composite index finished down 10.64, or 0.42%, to 2,531.41.

On Wall Street, strong corporate news from Cisco Systems and Pfizer Inc. drove U.S. markets forward.

The Dow Jones industrial index ended up 108.86 points, or 1.01%, at 10,858.62, the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 22.02 points, 0.98%, to 2,266.98, while the S&P 500 climbed 10.87 points, 0.87%, to 1,265.65.