Surging financial stocks pushed markets higher Friday, with Research and Motion shares adding to the positive momentum on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The S&P/TSX Composite index closed up 121.56 points, or 0.86%, at 14,237.06, as eight of the 10 major TSX groups made gains.

The influential financials group gained 2.08%.

Bank of Nova Scotia shares closed up $1.61, or 3.51%, at $47.50. TD Bank shares gained $1.12, or 1.75%, to close at $64.94. And the Royal Bank of Canada stock gained 71¢, or 1.50%, to close at $48.06.

The information tech group rose 2.43%, as RIM shares gained $3.72, or 3.10%, to close at $123.57.

The heavyweight energy group climbed 0.71%, as oil futures rose on nearly US$2 a barrel on news of a pipeline sabotaged in Nigeria. Crude oil for May delivery gained US$1.83, or 1.6%, to settle at US$116.69 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Husky Energy Inc. shares gained 59¢, or 1.34%, to end at $44.50, after China National Offshore Oil Corp. said it would pay $125 million for half of a Husky subsidiary.

The materials group closed down 0.82%, as the gold sub-index sank 3.61%.

A jump in the U.S. dollar pushed gold prices down. Gold for June delivery dropped US$27.70 to end at US$915.20 an ounce on the Nymex. For the week, gold lost US$11.80 from last Friday’s close at US$927 an ounce.

Barrick Gold Corp. shares fell $1.72, or 3.78%, to close at $43.80 on the tumbling gold prices. As well, Goldcorp Inc. shares fell $1.11, or 2.59%, to end at $41.68.

The base metals sector closed down 0.90%, as Timminco Ltd. shares lost $3.20, or 12.24%, to close at $22.95 on a heavy day of trading.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index closed down 18.60 points, or 0.72%, at 2572.19.

The Canadian dollar closed out at US99.51¢, up 0.70 of a cent from yesterday’s close, after Statistics Canada reported that wholesale sales 1.8% in February to $42.6 billion.

In New York, markets soared on better-than-expected earnings from Google Inc. and not-as-bad-as-expected writedowns from Citigroup Inc.

Citigroup reported a US$5.1 billion loss for the first quarter and announced it will slash about 9,000 more jobs.

Google’s stock jumped after the company’s Q1 profit beat analysts’ expectations.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 228.87 points, or 1.82%, to close out at 12,849.85. The S&P 500 rose 24.77 points, or 1.81%, to close at 1,390.33.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 61.14 points, or 2.61%, to end the day at 2,402.97.

For the week, the Dow ended gained 4.3%, he S&P 500 rose 4.3%, and the Nasdaq jumped of 4.9%.