By James Langton
(March 17 – 17:00 ET) – A comparatively quiet day ended a wild week on the stock market. The TSE opened strongly today but couldn’t hang onto the gains, with the TSE 300 closing up just 41 points to 9,529. Volume was average at 206.8 million shares despite this being an options expiration day. Market internals were bullish with volume 12:7 in favour of buyers, and advancers outpaced decliners 7:5.
Traders seemed to be rather quiet while they awaited a 25-basis-point rate rise from the U.S. Federal Reserve Board next Tuesday. This is expected to be followed by a similar move in Canada. Also, some eyes are watching the Taiwanese elections this weekend and its possible impact on Asian stability.
Under these gathering clouds, only the industrials and utilities managed to stay positive this afternoon, but that was enough to keep stocks in the black. The downside was led by miners, off 4%, joined by media stocks, real estate and most everything else.
The techs were buoyed by Nortel Networks. The 800-pound gorilla packed on more weight in several indexes including the S&P 500 and the TSE, spurring strong buying. Nortel closed up almost 6% on 8.2 million shares. Its parent BCE added 3% on 6.9 million shares. These giants alone were enough to hold the upside.
Nortel gains spilled over into BCE Emergis and gave some faith to other tech buyers who put some more air into Wi-Lan, Microcell, Celestica and Cryptologic.
It wasn’t an unmitigated love-in with tech stocks today, though. Some of the biggest losers came there too. Research in Motion dropped $16, Certicom slipped $8 and others, such as Sierra Wireless and Descartes Systems, slid as well. Seagram led the media stocks down, dropping 6.5%, while yesterday’s big rallyers, old economy stocks such as Weston, Potash and Weyerhaeuser, all pulled back notably.
These old-school stocks were also spooked by the news that the Burlington-CN merger may be in jeopardy from U.S. regulators.
The small caps finally caught up with yesterday’s rally today. The CDNX finished the day up 105 points to 4,457. Volume was strong at 94.5 million shares. The index was up 2.5%, led by the energy stocks, which added 3%. Miners were up strongly, while technology languished. Nuvo Network Management was the most notable trader, finishing almost unchanged at $3.30 on 1.6 million shares.
In New York, early gains in the old economy were surrendered, with the Dow finishing down 35 points to 10,595. The Nasdaq staged a modest rally, up 81 points to 4,798, while the S&P finished up six points to 1,465. Statement