By James Langton
(March 1 – 13:00) – March is coming in like a lion for investors. Stocks are booming on the TSE today. At midday, the TSE 300 is up 230 points, about 2.5%, to 9,359. The TSE quickly recovered yesterday’s late-day sell-off and rallied hard on average volume of 105 million shares. The up volume is outweighing the down 7:3, and advancers are ahead of decliners 3:2.
Every sector on the TSE is up, except miners which are down a mere 0.2%. The media stocks are leading the way, joined by the industrials and utilities. The big driver in the media sector are rumours that Edgar Bronfman Jr. is in talks to sell Seagram – a possible $25 billion deal. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. is said to be in the running, with France’s Vivendi mentioned too. Seagram is up more than 10% in active trading.
Among the tech stocks traders are rotating back into these plays south of the border, where the Nasdaq is up 75 points at midday to 4,772. News of several spin-offs from Lucent Technologies is also firing this sector and putting steam into it north of the border. Nortel Networks Corp., JDS Uniphase, Research in Motion, 724 Solutions and Ballard Power are all heading up strongly.
Energy stocks are rallying strongly on news of OPEC production increases, beginning in April. Stocks have been paradoxically subdued during the oil price boom on the basis that prices were unsustainable. As prices return to more normal levels, analysts are calling for the stocks to begin trading again. Transcanada Pipelines is leading the buying in this area after announcing that it will buy up Transcanada Partnership units. The LP units are up more than 40% at midday.
Despite strong tech trading, the insurer, Clarica, is the leading trade today. It’s down 0.67% on 4.6 million shares. There is no news from the company serving as a basis for the trading, but it’s selling off recent highs. Clarica is joined by the usual crop of penny stocks and buy-out targets among the volume leaders. St. Laurent Paper is up 2% in heavy trading. Plaintree Systems has added 19% after its earnings announcement. Mitel Corp. is up 4% on volume of 1.6 million shares.
The on again, off again, chatter surrounding Mackenzie Financial is off again. Speculation is cooling. And while the stock is still more active than usual it’s not trading as wildly as it has. Mackenzie is down 65¢ at midday. Gossips have added the name ING to the long list of possible suitors.
While Nasdaq has gone remorselessly up this morning Dow trading has been choppy. The release of the National Association of Purchasing Managers index sparked a brief sell-off but the Dow is now up 12 points to 10,140. The NAPM came in at 56.9, with the prices paid component at 74.1, both numbers are slightly ahead of market expectations.