TSE moves up as Wall St. stalls

The TSE 300 index is up about 35 points at midday on strong volume of
about 64 million shares. Breadth has strongly favoured the bulls today.
The trade so far has gone about 9:8 in favour of advancers over
decliners, but the volume has been more strongly positive. Today’s
volume has favoured buyers 3:1 over sellers.

So far it appears as though any fear surrounding today’s date –
9/9/99 – has been unwarranted. The world’s computers seem to have
accepted the date without incident.

Yesterday’s selling was set off by hawkish comments from a governor
with the U.S. Federal Reserve Board. This morning, traders were well
aware of more Fed speeches today. A morning talk by New York Federal
Reserve Bank president McDonough went without incident. He noted that
he is “very confident” in the strength of the economy, and highlighted
the importance of productivity gains. However, he did hint that weakness
in the U.S. dollar would be of concern to the Fed. And after the
better-than-expected GDP data in Japan, a weaker greenback appears to
be in the cards. Nevertheless there are a couple of other Fed speakers
slated for this afternoon, so the market is not out of the woods
yet.

In the meantime, Toronto’s stocks are moving up, led by the energy
sector. Oil and gas stocks are thundering after some positive comments
out of Wall Street. Tech stocks are also strong in the wake of a
technology conference hosted by Salomon Smith Barney.

The TSE’s blue-chip energy stocks are leading the way.
CanOxy, Talisman, Suncor and Renaissance are all up.
Nortel and BCE are leading the techs upward.
Bid.com is up on behalf of the Canadian Inetrnet stocks.

Air Canada is moving strongly today as the fight for it heats
up. The airline’s pilots have come out against the deal. They say they
have hired an advisor who specializes in employee buyouts to look at the
deal. They are especially critical of American Airlines’ role in
the deal. The stock has moved an incredible 5.7 million shares, up
75¢.

While the TSE is up, Montreal has slipped a couple of points, as has
the VSE. The ASE is up a point.

New York has been very quiet today. Many traders are sitting on
their hands, digesting the voluminous comments from Fed governors
while awaiting tomorrow’s critical PPI data. The Dow is currently off
about 16 points. Nasdaq’s techs are up about 16. The S&P has lost
three points.