Jeff Sanford
(September 15 – 17:30 ET) – The Toronto Stock Exchange capped off a wild week with a volatile day. The TSE 300 index opened the day lower than Thursday’s close, but soon began to recover as traders bought into Nortel. That trend reversed itself and the index was down 50 points at midday. By the close, though, the TSE had recovered slightly to close down 14.54 points at 11063.60.
The loss followed a record one-day gain of over 300 points yesterday. The decline was broad-based. Of 14 subindices, only two finished the day up. Oil and Gas was one of those. It finished up a strong 2.67%. The utilities sub-index also finished the day up.
Leading the downside were the gold, paper and metal sectors. All were down over 1%. As for the rest of the sectors, they were down slightly, with most down less than 0.2%.
Nortel was the most heavily traded issue on the day with over 8 million shares trading. It finished up 10¢ at $107.10. Husky Oil was big mover on the day, gaining 75¢ to bring it up to $14.55. Rogers continues to sink in the wake of the failed Vidoetron takeover attempt. Its shares dropped 45¢ to $36.40.
The CDNX finished the day up 38.15 points at 3690.07. Volume was heavy at 56.5 million shares. Overall, 323 shares advanced, while 275 declined.
The Canadian dollar finished up slightly. The loonie closed at US67.28¢, up from US67.23¢ yesterday.
In the U.S., the good news about inflation couldn’t overcome the nervousness about earings and higher oil, though. That uncertainty knocked the Dow Jones industrials composite index down triple digits today. It finished the week at 10,927.00, a drop of 160.47 points. It’s the first time the Dow has closed under 11,000 since early August.
The NASDAQ composite index was also down, today. It finished the day at 3835.23, a loss of 78.63 points. The S&P 500 finished the day at 1465.81, a loss of 15.06 points.