Today’s much anticipated earnings announcement from Cisco Systems came after the bell.

The company released fourth quarter earnings and sales estimates in line with analyst estimates. Net income was US2¢ a share.

Toronto stocks closed higher after faltering at midday. Although trading was mixed, investors found favour with financial stocks today, the big banks in particular.

The TSE 300 advanced 27.99 points to 7,772.20. Volume was light at 92 million shares.

Nine of the TSE’s 14 sub-indices advanced on the day. Most moves were modest, with only three groups gaining more than 1%. Golds rose 1.03%, pipelines moved up 1.56% and utilities advanced 1.05%

But it was the influential financial services sector that drove the sessions gains. It finished up 0.84%.

Among individual issues, it was a different story with decliners outpacing advancers 560 to 467, with 227 issues closing unchanged.

All of the big banks posted gains today. Among the most traded issues, BMO advanced 65¢ to $40.90. TD Bank gained 37¢ to $39.26, and Royal added 72¢ to $52.75. Sun Life Financial also posted gains up 45¢ to $38.70

The day’s top trader was Nortel Networks. Nortel added 36¢ to close at $12.60, on volume of 6.5 million shares.

Not all of its tech colleagues were so fortunate. Celestica shed $3.9 to close at $72.51 a drop of 4.34%.

The day’s big winner among tech stocks was Ezenet Corp. The company’s stock soared by more than 64% after Cognicase Inc. said it will take over Ezenet. in a $54 million deal. Ezenet closed up $1.09 at $2.79.

Other winners today include George Weston up $1.55 to $103.40, Moore Corp. up 85¢ to $11, and Barrick Gold up 53¢ to $22.74.

Among today’s losers were number two trader Bombardier, down 51¢ to $21.10, and Consumers Packaging down 82% to 5.5¢ after announcing last week that it was selling off it’s Canadian assets.

Certicom fell back $1.04 to $4.46 after surging 38% on Friday’s takeover rumours.

On the CDNX, trading was active with a volume of 26.7 million shares. The index closed down 1.47 at 3,098.27. Among individual issues 143 advanced, 232 declined and 513 closed unchanged.

On Wall Street, investors found favour with the blue chip stocks. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 57.43 points to 10,458.74. The broader market S&P 500 was also up, adding 3.92 points to 1,204.40

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index slipped 6.48 points to 2,027.40, after a negative report on chip stocks from a CS First Boston analyst.