By James Langton
(April 6 – 13:00 ET) – Stocks are making a strong comeback today, although the volume is rather light. At midday the TSE 300 is up 227 points to 9453 on volume of 77 million shares. The bias is heavily positive, volume is almost 5:1 in favour of buyers and advances outnumber declines almost 2:1.
The speculative software and biotech stocks are bouncing back very strongly, almost 9% and 7% respectively. The consumer sector is up more than 5% as a result. But there is also strength in the industrials, utilities, merchandisers, miners and media stocks.
The high tech whipping boys of recent days are leading the bounce-back so far today. Stocks such as Certicom, Research in Motion, 724 Solutions, BCE Emergis and Sierra Wireless are all up strongly. Ballard Power and Angiotech Pharmaceuticals are also strong.
The hot stocks on the street today are takeover targets Ranger Oil and Ulster Petroleum. Ranger is up 7% on 6.1 million shares. Ulster has added 1% on 2.6 million shares.
The financials are up too, led by strong gains in Manulife Financial.
Only the golds are on the outs, with traders rotating away from its safety and the metal’s prices dropping a couple of bucks in New York this morning. The pipeline stocks are also slumping.
In New York the markets are moving solidly up there too. Nasdaq is leading the way, up 122 points to 4291. The Dow has gained 106 points to reach 11140. The S&P has added 17 points, back above the 1500 mark to 1504.
The small caps have finally joined the recovery today. The CDNX index has gained 116 points to reach 4097, back above the 4000 level. Volume remains light though at 26 million shares. The techs are leading the gains, up more than 5%. Both the oils and miners are up slightly too. Abitibi Mining Corp. is leading the trade again today, gaining 41% to 17¢ on volume of 1.4 million shares.