Toronto stocks closed higher for the first time in five sessions on Friday as bargain-hunting investors sparked a broad-based rally. The S&P composite index closed up 88.16 points, or 1.04%, at 8,592.04.

Volume was heavy with 255 million shares changing hands..

Today’s rally ended a four-day selloff, and technology stocks were the main beneficiaries.

The tech sector closed up 3.24%, buoyed by strong quarterly results from U.S. oftware giant Oracle.

TSX tech bellwether Nortel Networks climbed 18¢ to $8.58, and was the session most active stock 27 million shares traded.

Celestica gained $1.47 to $22.89 while ATI Technologies rose 91¢ to $19.30.


There were more than 1% gains in seven TSX sectors, including energy, industrials, materials and health-care.

The utilities group was the lone loser, falling 0.59%.

Among individual stocks, Slater Slipped plunged 39¢ to 10¢ after announcing that the TSX had accepted its request to delist from the exchange The shares will be delisted at the close on March 19.

Canadian Superior fell 14¢ to $2.24 on word that a U.S.-based law firm has commenced an investigation into the halting of Canadian Superior’s drilling effort at a well off the coast of Nova Scotia.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index slid 6.83 points to 1,862.61.

On Wall Street, stocks rallied as investors came back into the market and bought technology stocks.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index gained 40.82 points, or 2.10%, to 1,984.71.

The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average ended up 111.70 points, or 1.10%, at 10,240.08. The S&P 500 rose 13.82 points, or 1.25%, to 1,120.60.

For the week, the Dow ended down 3.35%, the S&P 500 lost 3.14%, and the Nasdaq fell 3.07%. These declines marked the biggest weekly%age drops for all three major U.S. stock indexes since last September.