Nortel leads today’s charge on the TSE

While the TSE’s move is
impressive, it’s all about Nortel;
which is single-handedly dragging
the utilities and industrial
products sectors up more than
3.5%.

Nortel is up about 7%, or $7,
after the company met with analysts
yesterday. All the network
equipment makers have been doing
the Wall Street dog-and-pony show,
including Nortel rivals Cisco
and Lucent. Nortel has
apparently come out smelling like a
rose and the index is feasting on
the spoils. BCE is up more
than 6% itself.

On a sector basis eight of the
TSE’s 14 groups are up. The leading
loser is of course gold, which
continues its up again down again
performance. Golds are off more
than 4%.

Apart from the Nortel rally,
Newbridge Networks is also
having a good day; as are other
tech stocks, Research in Motion,
Celestica, and Microcell.
Good old-fashioned TransCanada
Pipelines is trading actively
to the upside too. Air Canada
is up more than 2.5% as it proposes
to sort out the Canadian airline
industry.

With gold off, Barrick and
Placer are among the big
losers. So are Architel, JDS
Uniphase and QLT Phototherapeutics.

The ME is up more than 1% , or
41 points. Alberta is off a couple
of points, while the VSE is flat.

In New York, markets opened up
and traded up until the moment of
silence at 11:00 EST, when things
turned down for the Dow. At noon
the Dow is off about 32 points.
The techs continue to rally
nonetheless, up 20 points. The
S&P is up a point.