Toronto stocks rose Thursday as gains in resource and tech shares offset a flat financials group. At midday, The S&P/TSX composite index was up 33.48 points, or 0.35%, at 9,543.00.

Volume was 87 million shares.

Energy companies rose 0.55% as crude oil prices held steady above US$51 a barrel on U.S. inventory data that showed an unexpected drop in crude stocks.

The resource-heavy materials group rose 0.66%. Abitibi-Consolidated was up 11¢, or 2.17%, at $5.18.

Alcan rose 48¢, or 1.28%, to $38.08. The company said on Thursday it will issue $800 million worth of notes and use the net proceeds to repay its commercial paper debt.

Financials were nearly flat, up only 0.08%, after two days of bank earnings results.

Toronto-Dominion Bank was up 44¢, or 0.85%, at $52.08 after slipping into the red shortly after markets opened. TD, posted a 22% rise in second-quarter profit, but its numbers did not meet analysts’ forecasts.

National Bank of Canada rose 45¢, or 0.88%, to $52.51 after posting a 12% rise in quarterly profits.

Tech issues rose 0.55%, helped by Research In Motion’s 94¢, or 0.94%, rise to $100.89. The maker of the BlackBerry wireless device and Belgian cell phone operator Proximus announced the launch of the BlackBerry 7100v business phone on Thursday.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index was up 4.15 points, or 0.26%, at 1,609.66. Volume was 1,609.66.

In New York, U.S. stocks rallied after an upward revision to U.S. economic growth lifted investor sentiment.

At midday, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 63.04 points, or 0.60%, at 10,520.84. The S&P 500 was up 6.52 points, or 0.55%, at 1,196.53. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index was up 17.76 points, or 0.87%, at 2,067.uu.

Investors were cheered by data showing the U.S. economy expanded at a 3.5% annual rate in the first quarter — higher than the previous estimate of a 3.1% rise in gross domestic product.

But, the upwardly revised growth still represents a modest slowing from the fourth quarter’s 3.8% pace and was slightly below Wall Street economists’ forecasts for a 3.6% rise in GDP.