Afternoon rally falls short for TSE

After yesterday’s market carnage, the TSE 300 plunged more than 200 points to 9226.04 this morning when trading in Nortel Networks resumed. It was halted for about an hour as the ailing TSE order processing system struggled to keep up with trading volume.

But the slightest bit of confidence seemed to return to the Toronto market this afternoon and the TSE rose to finish at 9428.70, a loss of 83.14 points. Nortel, which traded as low as $64.90 during the day, closed down $1.75 at $69.80.

Positive speculation about JDS Uniphase first quarter earnings drove trading late in the afternoon. After the bell, the optical equipment maker announced it had beat analyst estimates by 2¢ a share. It reported earnings of 18¢ a share on revenues of $786 million, up from 8¢ a share a year ago. Nevertheless, including merger costs and one-time charges, JDS reported a loss of $1 billion, or $1.07 a share.

So far JDS has avoided the Nortel effect, as it closed today up $4.95 to $116.50.

C-Mac, which counts on Nortel for 65% of its business, was down $1.25 at $83.75. Celestica was down $1.80 at $108.75.

In the rest of the market, nine of fourteen sub-indices ended the day down. Paper, oil, merchandising industrial products and consumer products were all down between 1% and 2%.

Conglomerates, gold, pipelines were all up, but none greater than 1%. Utilities were up 1.33%.

Overall, declining issues outnumbered advancing issues, 607 to 467. Volume was relatively light at 123 million shares.

BCE did well today, closing up $1.25 at $38.05. Teleglobe was up 90¢ at $34.30.

Air Canada also did well, adding $1.15 to close at $15.15.

Financial stocks also continued to creep up. CIBC led with a gain of 1.10%, Royal Bank was up 0.33% and Bank of Nova Scotia up 0.24%. TD’s exposure to telecom debt continues to haunt the stock. I was down .049% today.

The CDNX finished the day down 26.62 points at 3,240.38. Volume was 38 million shares, with 355 issues declining and 592 advancing.

The loonie has recovered somewhat from the Nortel effect. It closed Thursday at US65.94¢ compared to US65.89¢ yesterday.

In New York, the Nasdaq composite index recovered from its losses yesterday. Strength in techs like Intel, Dell, Microsoft and Cisco pushed the Nasdaq up 42.59 points to close at 3,272.16. It had been down 148 points in intra-day trading. The Dow Jones industrial average finished up 53.64 points at 10,380.12. The S&P 500 finished relatively flat at 1364,43, a loss of half a point.