Toronto stocks rallied again on Friday, shaking off an $850 million writedown by Royal Bank of Canada.

The S&P/TSX composite added 94.28 points, or 1.01%, to close at 9,437.65.

The benchmark index was up 2.7% on the week, marking its sixth-straight week of gains.

All but two of the 10 main TSX groups finished higher Friday.

The heavyweight financials group gained 2.14%.

Despite the big writedown, RBC’s shares rose 1.9% to $43.15.

CIBC jumped 4% to finish at $53.94, and National Bank of Canada rose 4.1% to end at $46.43.

Insurance giant Sun Life Financial gained 3.5% to end at $29.09.

The energy sector added 1.6%, as the May crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange gained 82¢ to US$50.80 a barrel.

Suncor Inc. advanced 57¢ to $31.26 while EnCana Corp. gained $1.09 to $55.39.

The resource-laden materials group fell 1.74% as the price of gold fell US$11.90 to US$867.90 an ounce.

Goldcorp shares dropped $1.23 to $32.87.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index gained 7.10 points, or 0.72%, to end at 989.23.

The Canadian dollar slipped 0.47¢ to close at US82.30¢, after Statistics Canada reported that consumer prices rose 1.2% in the 12 months to March 2009, down from the 1.4% increase in February.

In New York, U.S. stocks rose slightly on better-than-expected quarterly results at General Electric and Citigroup.

The Dow Jones industrial average advanced 5.90 points, or 0.07%, to 8,131.33. The S&P 500 rose 4.30 points, or 0.50%, to 869.60. The Nasdaq composite index added 2.63 points, or 0.16%, to 1,673.07.

In Friday’s economic news, a report from University of Michigan survey showed that U.S. consumers have more confidence in the economy than they have had since the sudden collapse of Lehman Brothers in September.

For the week, the S&P 500 rose 1.5%, the Dow climbed 0.6% and the Nasdaq gained 1.2%.

IE