By James Langton
(April 26 – 13:00 ET) – Strong earnings in three stocks has driven traders to the races today. The TSE 300 composite index is up 242 points to 9349. Volume is strong, too, at 61 million shares. However the gains are very concentrated. Volume is actually 3:2 for sellers and the split between advancers and decliners is even.
There is no mystery to this morning’s rally. Strong earnings at Nortel Networks, JDS Uniphase and BCE Inc. has the techs and utilities up 9% and 6% respectively. Media stocks are up 1% and the rest of the market is down, led by financials, miners and paper stocks. Investors are dumping their rocks and trees to crowd back into pricey techs.
Nortel is up about 12% on 4 million shares, BCE has gained 8% and JDS is up 4%. JDS and Nortel beat the street yesterday and BCE announced profit improvements this morning ahead of its spinoff of Nortel. Delrina, Onex, Creo and C-Mac are up, too. Potash Corp. is the lone winner on the old economy side, thanks to its street-beating earnings result released this morning.
Apart from big gains in a fistful of big stocks the tone is negative. 724 Solutions is down, as is BCE Emergis, 360 Networks and Cogeco.
The U.S. markets are reflecting the true tone of trading. The Dow Jones industrial average is down 112 points to 11012. NASDAQ is off eight ticks to 3702. The Standard & Poor’s has dropped five points to 1472.
The CDNX is more or less flat today. The index is down three points to 3,559. Techs are down there today, joined by energy stocks. Miners are holding up though. Emerging Ventures Corp. is the hottest trader, up 125% to 45¢ on more than 1 million shares.