Toronto stocks managed to shake off warnings from Nortel Networks and Barrick Gold during Thursday’s trading session to close in the black. The S&P/TSX composite index finished up 14.39 points at 6,179.42.

The benchmark index spent much of the day trading below Wednesday’s close after Barrick surprised the market with its warning that its third-quarter and year-end earnings would fall below earlier guidance because lower gold production and higher costs.

Barrick tumbled 11.4%, and dragged the TSX gold subgroup down 5.8%. Placer Dome slipped 80¢ to $14.50, and Kinross Gold dipped 22¢ to $3.32.

Nortel finished down 14¢ to 89¢ after saying late on Wednesday that it would miss third-quarter revenue targets and announced plans for a stock consolidation. Nortel’s 64 million shares traded led all issues in volume.

Financial stocks rose late in the session to finish up 1.43%.

Royal Bank rose $1.04 at $52.24, while TD added 56¢ to $28.33, and BMO climbed 69¢ to $36.06.

Market momentum was negative, as declining issues outnumbered advancers 530 to 491. Toronto volume was 207.2 billion shares traded on the entire market. Overall trading value was $2.2 billion.

The junior TSX Venture Exchange declined 3.85 points to 957.48.

In New York, blue chips surged, while tech issues were flat. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 155.30 points to 7,997.12, while the Nasdaq composite inched down 0.68 points to 1,221.61. The S&P 500 index added 7.96 points to 843.64.

In economic news, U.S. durable goods orders dipped by 0.6% in August, after a massive 8.6% gain in July. Analysts were expecting a drop of more than two per cent.

The Canadian dollar climbed for a second day on Thursday, recouping the week’s losses, helped by comments by Finance Minister John Manley as well as stronger-than-expected U.S. economic data.

The Canadian dollar finished at US63.42¢, up from US63.30¢ on Wednesday.