By James Langton
(September 6 – 13:30 ET) – Stocks are sliding across the board today. The TSE 300 is down 90 points to 11,238. Volume is strong at almost 90 million shares, about 9:8 in favour of sellers. Decliners are edging the number of advancers.
Every sector in the TSE is down except the energy stocks, and the financials are barely positive. Everything else is bleeding, led by technology, software and biotechs.
Investors are dumping high-priced techs across the board on little more than profit-taking and general negative sentiment. Nortel Networks is leading the way down, off 1.6% on 2.4 million shares. BCE is down about the same in active trading. Joining Nortel on the downside is Sierra Wireless, Research in Motion, Descartes Systems, MDS, GSI Lumonics, Biovail and QLT. A few techs, Ballard Power, Pivotal and Janna Systems, are resisting the slide.
The move away from volatile techs to more stable names is being reflected in the financials where traders have been dumping TD Bank all morning in favour of CIBC, which is announcing earnings tomorrow. Manulife is strong in the insurance sector. The brokerage exchangeable shares, Merrill and Legg Mason, are popping on takeover speculation surrounding J.P. Morgan.
The penny stocks continue to trade strongly. Heritage Concepts is up on 3 million shares traded, while William Multi-Tech is down. Repap is trading strongly again, too.
Inco’s VBN shares are up strongly, 23% or so, in heavy trading on news that Inco will buy out those shares.
Other old economy names are basking in the attention, as techs fall from favour. Stocks such as General Motors, Burlington and Veritas Energy are all up.
In business news, Sobeys Inc. says first-quarter earnings jumped 32% to 49¢ a share, in the period ended August 5, compared to 38¢ in the same quarter last year.
Convenience store operator Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. is reporting first quarter profit of 44¢ a share, up from 35¢ in the quarter last year.
Thomson Corp. says it will sell its southern Alberta newspapers, including two dailies, the Lethbridge Herald and Medicine Hat News, to Horizon Publications for an undisclosed sum. The deal is expected to close during the fourth quarter. Thomson expects to sell its three remaining dailies, except for the Globe and Mail, by year-end or early in 2001.
In New York, the market is deeply divided. The Dow is up 103 points to 11,364, while Nasdaq is off 67 points to 4,076, and the S&P 500 is down 2.4 points to 1,505.
Blue chips are gaining, led by J.P. Morgan takeover talk. The company’s shares are up 5% after a German weekly reported that Deutsche Bank is in talks to buy the U.S. investment bank. Techs though are taking hits on negative feelings and analyst downgrades for names such as Micron Technology, Intel, and WorldCom.
The CDNX is sliding too, down three points to 3,609 on volume of 24.6 million shares. Techs and miners are weak, while energy plays are up. Justinian Explorations Ltd. is the leading trader, up 50% on almost 1 million shares.