TSE overcomes morning glitch to set new record

It was an eventful day in North American markets. The fun began when the TSE couldn’t open on time due to technical errors.

Officials gave notice shortly before the opening bell that the senior equities exchange would not open on time. Pre-trading had caused some kind of technical glitch was the first word out this morning. TSE officials, though, released a note later in the day saying that the glitch was caused by a file that had failed to be cleared from the system following testing over the weekend.

Officials were quick to point out that the glitch was the result of human error, and had nothing to do with TSE technology.

Although the system was ready to go by 9:38, the opening was delayed until 10:25 to ensure that there was a “fair and orderly” opening for all market participants.

This was all just hours before Alan Greenspan was set to release the latest on the state of the American economy.

So it was a bit if a surprise when an hour after the TSE finally came to life, the CDNX had to close early after a fire knocked out power in downtown Vancouver. Officials at the CDNX reported that the building that houses the CDNX’s trading system experienced a morning explosion that knocked out power to the exchange. The outage also suspended equity trading on the Montreal Exchange. The electronic trading platform for the ME is housed in the same building. The main offices of Canaccord Capital were affected, too.

Trading was halted for the day, but not before the CDNX closed up 14.11 points to 33,55.99. The CDNX says it expects to resume trading tomorrow morning as usual.

Trouble even managed to find the Winnipeg Stock Exchange. Trading at the WSE was suspended at 10:40 CDT today due to a power outage. The WSE expects to fully resume normal trading on Wednesday.

When the Federal Reserve Committee finally adjourned this afternoon, the press release after the meeting announced that interest rates would stay where they were. The release noted there is still a danger of inflation.

The news seemed to be what markets wanted to hear and advances were the story of the day on most major indices.

Networking issues led the way in both in the U.S. and Canada.

Nortel rose $2.10 points to drag the TSE 300 up 63.93 points to close at 11,137.20, another record.

South of the border, Cisco was the most heavily traded issue of the day. The gain in the Silicon Valley giant helped lift the Nasdaq composite to a 5.06 point gain. It closed at 3,958.21.

The Dow Jones industrial average was also up 59.34 points. It closed at 11,1139.15. The S&P 500 was also up. It rose 1.35 points to close at 1,498.13.

On the TSE, the advance was slightly narrow with only five of 14 sub-indices ending higher. The metals and minerals sub-index was way out front with a 3.09% gain. Rio Algom was up 45% on Noranda’s hostile takeover bid.

In individual stocks, Bombardier was active again today, rising 40¢ to end the day at $22.75. RIM was up $4.65 to $92.75, while TELUS dropped $4.05 to $36.

The Canadian dollar ended slightly higher today. It closed at US67.74¢, up from yesterday’s US67.74¢.