By Jeff Sanford
(August 9 – 18:00 ET) – After a couple of days of big gains, the TSE sat back for a breather today. After a midday climb of 50 points, the TSE 300 index settled back to finish at a slight gain of 4.29 points to close the day at 10, 863.01. Profit taking seemed to be the order of the day.
Overall, the action was on decent volume of 158 million shares and fairly mixed — 546 stocks advanced while 530 declined and 303 remained unchanged.
Eight of 14 sub-indices were up, led by gains in media, conglomerates and pipelines. The biggest gain was in media, which was up thanks to Videotron — the second most heavily traded stock of the day.
Qubecor unveiled a new all-cash offer for Videotron that valued the firm at $4.9 billion, or $45 a share, a premium of 35.5% on Tuesday’s closing price of $33.20. Videotron stock rose 20% on the news to close at $40 a share
The big losers today were consumer products and metals. The industrial products sub-index was also dragged down 0.19% as Nortel lost 35¢ to close at $117.30
In other individual stocks, Heritage concepts continues to be a favourite. The stock was up another 46% today on an incredible 32 million shares traded
Bombardier was another favourite, up 2.33% to close at $26.30.
News that the U.S. is facing record lows in oil inventories helped resource companies, as the price of oil shot back up to near $30 a barrel overnight. TransCanada and Renaissance were both up, 1.87% and 2.62 % respectively. Renaissance reported yesterday that cash flows have doubled and earnings are up 5 times for the last quarter
Look for Gulf Canada to do well also. The company reported today that it is back to health profit-wise on the surging price of oil. The company reported earnings of 9¢ a share compared to a 3¢ share last year. Being mentioned as a stock to watch in this week’s Barron’s didn’t hurt either. Gulf Canada stock was up 4.2% to close at $7.45
The CDNX finished the day down 5.52 points at 3,341.29 points.
The loonie was up slightly, closing at US67.44¢, up 0.25 ¢ from Tuesday.
The good earnings news from Cisco yesterday sent the Nasdaq composite up through the day, but profit taking near the end of the session left it just slightly at the close. The tech-market finished the day at 3,853.50 up 4.95 points.
The Dow was down substantially more, though after a week of steady climbs it’s still above its lows. The Dow closed at 10,905.83, down 71.05 points.
The broader S&P 500 index was down 9.93 points to finish at 1,472.87.
The release of the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book today sent mixed signals about the strength of the economy. The book provided signs that the U.S. economy slowed somewhat in June and July, but it still indicated a tight labour market. Labour is one of the Fed’s biggest concerns when it comes to interest rate decisions.