A rally in tech stocks gave the Dow triple digits today and the boosted the Nasdaq composite index over 3%.
Some big tech names reaffirmed earnings projections today and investors seemed to take that to mean that the economy is not going get any worse.
That good news, though, didn’t extended to the Toronto Stock Exchange, where an announcement by Nortel that it is re-pricing stock options led to a drop in the networkers stock that negated early morning gains on the TSE 300.
The TSE 300 finished the day down 42 points to close at 8,256. Nortel fell 4.08% to $20.70.
Other techs were able to make gains though. Celestica was up 5.13% close at $83, while Cyberplex advanced 15% to close at $1.38.
A 1% drop in the real estate sector, and minor declines in eight others also hampered the composite index. The only sectors to post gains were metals and minerals, oil and gas and consumer products.
Volume picked up some from yesterday. Just over166 million shares changed hands, but that’s still relatively light.
Among individual issues, market trend was slightly positive with 581 issues advancing and 514 declining.
Certicom continued to plunge today, dropping another 16.38% to close at $7.20.
Stelco though had a strong day, gaining a massive 15.1% to close at $4.95.
Rogers also had a strong day, gaining 6.39% to close at $24.15. A mention in Barron’s earlier this week seems to have helped.
The CDNX closed lower, dropping 12.64 points to finish at 3,354.67. Volume was slightly light at 38 million shares. Market trend was negative, with decliners outpacing advancer 592 to 254.
The loonie had a good day though, advancing 0.37% over the course of the day. It closed at US65.34ยข.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average shot up114 points to close at 11,176. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite advanced 77 points to 2,234. The broader-market S&P 500 gained 16.46 points to 1,283.57.