Toronto stocks closed lower Wednesday, dragged down by selling in the heavily weighted financial group. The S&P/TSX composite index fell 19.10 points, or 0.21%, at 8,976.09, on volume of 255 million shares.

Four of the 10 TSX groups were lower, led by a 1.52% drop in financial stocks.

TD Bank share fell 0.55% to $46.87 despite news that the bank’s annual profit more than doubled to $2.3 billion as fourth-quarter income rose to $612 million. However, the bank said that extremely strong growth in personal banking may not be sustainable over the long term.

The selling spread to other bank stocks. Royal Bank fell 1.29% to $$61.85. Bank of Montreal lost $2.05 to $54.65 on top of Tuesday’s $1.15 slide after warning of slower earnings growth in the wake of a record annual profit.

Toronto energy stocks rose 0.76% as the price of light sweet crude for January delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 50¢ to US$49.44 a barrel even though weekly U.S. government data showed rising domestic inventories of crude and distillate fuel, which includes heating oil.

Information technology stocks rose 2.32%. Shares in Nortel Networks rose 20¢ to $3.97 after the firm issued a statement that played down the likelihood of stock market delistings over its delay in filing financial statements.

ATI Technologies was up 85¢ cents, 3.1%, to $23.45.

Active stocks included Leitch Technology. Its shares tumbled 19.62% to $8.40 after the broadcast equipment maker missed earnings expectations even as it achieved its first net profit in four years.

The S&P/TSX Venture composite index closed up 2.34 points, or 0.14%, to 1,702.94, on volume of 107 million shares.

In New York, stocks enjoyed a pre-holiday rally as the Nasdaq found solid support from the tech sector amid bullish broker comments on Google, while blue chips benefited from strength in General Motors and McDonald’s.

U.S. markets will be closed Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday and open for a shortened trading session Friday.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 27.71 points, or 0.3%, at 10,520.31 while the Nasdaq composite index, lifted 18.26 points, or 0.9%, to 2,102.54. The S&P 500 index added 4.82 points, or 0.4% to 1,181.76.

The broad move higher came even as the U.S. dollar continued to trade at record lows against the euro and at nearly five-month lows against the yen. The euro rose to an all-time high of US$1.3179 in late New York trading.