It was a roller coaster ride for Toronto equities on Thursday, with major gains early in the day that were largely wiped out by early afternoon, then back up at day’s end.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 186.9 points, or 1.6%, at 12,064.57, its first increase in four days.

News that central banks would pour $247 billion into the global financial sector helped push financial shares up 5.7% in Toronto, making up for yesterday’s losses.

Shares of the Bank of Nova Scotia climbed the most in a decade on the news of the central bank funding, closing up 8.2% at $47.37.

Heavily traded Manulife Financial Corp. shares finished the day at $35.34, up 4.7% after three days of price declines.

Jittery investors continued to pour their cash into gold, sending the benchmark contract above US$900 an ounce during the day, for the first time in six weeks. By day’s end, gold futures for December delivery were up US$46.50, or 5.5%, to close at US$897 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Despite these price hikes the TSX gold sub-index fell 4% on Thursday. Barrick Gold Inc. finished the day at $32.50, down 8%, and shares of Goldcorp Inc. fell 6.7% to $30.61.

These declines helped drag down the materials index 2%.

Crude for October delivery gained 72¢ to close at US$97.88 a barrel on Nymex, boosting the TSX energy group by 1.2%.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index increased 8 points, or 0.6%, to close at 1,477.88.

The Canadian dollar gained 0.06 of a cent to close at US94.18¢.

In New York, a gain of 410.03 on the Dow Jones industrial average reclaimed roughly 90% of yesterday’s 449.36-point drop. It closed at 11,019.69.

The S&P 500 gained 50.01 points to finish at 1,206.4, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index added 100.25 points to close at 2,199.