By James Langton
(August 31 – 13:00 ET) – Stocks are scaling the heights on the TSE today. At midday the TSE 300 is up 115 points to 11288. Volume has slowed a little to 75.3 million, but much of that fall-off is due to less penny stock playing. Buying is outpacing selling about 13:9, while advancers outnumber decliners decisively, 11:8.
Only two groups are down on the TSE, media and pipelines, and their slides are almost imperceptible. There’s strength in the insurance stocks. They’re up about 4%. Clarica, Canada Life, Manulife and Sun Life are all up sharply on positive feeling surrounding the insurance group in general, merger speculation, and a report from Goldman Sachs analyst Heather Wolf calling Manulife one of the few “must have” Canadian stocks. Goldman put the company on its recommended list and the buyers followed.
Biotechs, golds, miners and tech stocks are doing well, too.
Naturally any good day for the index is likely to mean a good day for Nortel Networks. The stock is up 1.7% on soft volume of 1.7 million shares. Other techs on the upside include Research in Motion, 724 Solutions, Wi-Lan, QLT and Ballard Power.
Repap is active again today, up to its takeout price of 20¢ on 7.2 million shares. Fellow take-over target, Rio Algom, is down a nickel in active trading.
On the downside, some of yesterday’s winners are being hit with profit-taking. Seagram is sliding 1.6%, C.I. is off 3.6% in the wake of the AGF-Global Strategy buyout. Other losers include Tundra Semiconductor, Pivotal, and the banks.
The small caps are roaring ahead too. By midday the CDNX gained 43 points to 3490 on volume of 24.8 million. Energy stocks are strongest, followed by miners and techs. Siegesoft Internet is the top trader. It’s up 7% on 3.5 million shares.
This morning National Bank reported third quarter net income of $133 million, or 67¢ per share, beating analyst estimates of 60¢ and last year’s result of 58¢.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrials composite index is up 180 points to 11283. The NASDAQ compiste index has gained 73 points and is sitting at 4176. The S&P has tacked on 17 points, climbing to 1519. Biotechs are leading the techs there, too. The brokers are strong among the old economy names on continued merger speculation. JP Morgan, Lehman and Goldman are up notably. Weak retail sales numbers are hitting retailing stocks, but spurring the consensus that a soft landing is on track for the U.S. economy.