inancial issues climbed in Thursday afternoon trading, helping buoy Toronto stocks and allowing the benchmark index to close higher.

The S&P/TSX Composite index rose 16.02 points, or 0.11%, to close at 14,115.50.

Half of the 10 major TSX groups fell today.

The financials group closed up 0.82%.

TD Bank shares gained 58¢, or 0.92%, to close at $63.82, after it announced its chunk of TD Ameritrade’s earnings will mean C$67 million for the bank’s Q2 net income. TD Ameritrade announced profits increased 32% for the quarter, to US$187 million.

The Royal Bank of Canada shares gained 48¢, or 1.02%, to close at $47.35.

The heavyweight energy group closed up 0.32%, as crude for May delivery fell US7¢ to end at US$114.86 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier in the day, the contract hit a record high of US$115.54 a barrel.

Suncor Energy Inc. stock gained $1.92, or 1.68%, to end at $116.30.

The materials group closed down 1.02%, as the gold sub-index fell 1.25%,

Gold for June delivery fell US$5.40 to end at US$942.90 an ounce on the Nymex.

Goldcorp Inc. shares fell 63¢, or 1.45%, to end at $42.79 and Kinross Gold Corp. shares fell 34¢, or 1.33% , to close at $25.14.

The base metals sector closed up 1.02%, as Lundin Mining Corp. stock fell 29¢, or 3.62%, to end the session at $7.73.

In other news, stock the newly formed Thomson Reuters information company hit the boards today. The new stock closed down $1.33, or 3.55%, at $36.15.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index closed up 16.24 points, or 0.63%, at 2590.79.

The Canadian dollar closed out at US98.79¢, up 0.66 of a cent from yesterday’s close, after Statistics Canada reported that consumer price inflation slowed to 1.4% in March, hitting its lowest level since January 2007.

In New York, markets were generally unimpressed by the flock of earnings that came in today from Merrill Lynch, Pfizer and IBM.

Merrill Lynch reported Q1 losses of US$2.14 billion, weaker results than analysts were expecting. The firm also announced plans to eliminate 4,000 jobs.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 1.22 points, or 0.01%, to close out at 12,620.49. The S&P 500 rose 0.85 points, or 0.06%, to close at 1,365.56.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq, however, fell 8.28 points, or 0.35%, to end the day at 2,341.83.