The Toronto stocks closed flat Monday, held back by a slide in the heavily weighted financials group ahead this week’s bank earnings reports. Toronto’s S&P/TSX composite index closed 1.56 points lower, or 0.02%, at 9,056.41. Volume was 263 million shares.

Six of the TSE’s 10 sector gauges closed in the plus column led by a 0.8% gain in information technology.

Financials were the biggest losers, sliding 0.65% with Royal Bank down 60¢ to $62.04, CIBC off $1.21 to $70.74, National Bank fell 53¢ to $46.32 but Scotiabank gained four¢ to $37.32.

Stocks in the news included Royal Group Technologies, which rose 4% to $10.40 on news of a management shakeup.

The special committee of independent directors fired RYG President and CEO Douglas Dunsmuir and senior vice president and CFO Ron Goegan. The committee also dismissed chairman Vic De Zen and requested that all three resign as directors.

Meanwhile, shares of BFI Canada Income Fund jumped 5.4% to $27.20 after it announced a $1.1 billion deal to combine with IESI Corp. of Fort Worth, Texas, to form one of the largest non-hazardous solid waste management companies in North America.

The junior S&P/TSX venture composite index rose 21.39 points, or 1.23% to 1,765.56.

The Canadian dollar fell sharply on Monday, hurt by worries about Canada’s economy and the outlook for interest rates, as well as by a U.S. currency that was rebounding from last week’s lows. The loonie closed down 0.72 of a cent to US84.32¢.

On Wall Street, stocks finished mixed with blue chips especially hard hit by a sales warning from Wal-Mart amid doubts on the strength of the start of the holiday shopping season. But techs got a boost from an upgrade of Apple Computer.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 46.33 points, or 0.44%, to 10,475.9. The tech-intensive Nasdaq composite index gained 4.9 points, or 0.23%, to 2,106.8. The broader S&P 500 index dipped 4.08 points, 0.4%5, to 1,178.57.

The tech sector got a lift from Apple Computer Inc. Its shares surged $3.89 to US$68.44 after Merrill Lynch analysts said holiday sales of its iPod music player will give the company a strong boost.

Shares in Wal-Mart tumbled $2.17 to US$53.17 after the company predicted that November same-store sales in the U.S. would grow by only 0.7% over a year ago, far less than the 2% to 4% rise the retailer had expected.