By Jeff Sanford
(April 11 – 18:00 ET) – Markets opened on a positive note this morning, but that optimism wore off during the day. The TSE 300 finished the session down 33.05 points at 7,712.70.
Tech stocks had been holding up the index, but they were only able to eke out an advance of 0.39%. That wasn’t enough to turn the tide against broader market declines.
Ten of the TSE’s fourteen sub-indices finished the day down. Only transportation metals, conglomerates and the industrial products sector advanced.
Leading the downside, with a 2.5% decline, was the pipelines sector. Financial services declined 1.2%. TD led the drop with a 3.2% loss to close at $39. National Bank of Canada was down 2.9% at $26.45, while BMO was off 2.2% at $37.55.
No other sectors were off more than 1%. Among individual issues the market trend was also negative, with decliners outpacing advancers 594 to 467 issues. Volume today was heavier than it has been over the past week, with 209 million shares changing hands.
Heading in one of the least eagerly anticipated earnings seasons in some time, investors have their eyes out for any company posting a good report. That explains today’s appearance of Airboss America on the most active list. The company posted a good balance sheet for the quarter late last week and hungry investor seemed to have caught on, rewarding it with a 8.70% advance. It closed as $1.25.
Comptom Petroleum, which announced a good quarter, was the fourth most active issue on the day, moving up 4.76% to close at $5.50. Rogers, though, announced a heavy first quarter loss and that sent its B shares down 5.88% to close at $20.
Investors certainly seem sick of anything online. Axxent was heavily traded today, dropping 16.67% to close at 30\u00a2. The only news on the issue was that it had launched an online domain-name registration service.
An announcement that Triumph Energy Corp. has entered into an agreement to acquire Baytex Energy sent shares in Triumph up 21.33% to close at $3.64.
The CDNX remained relatively unchanged today, climbing only 0.5% to close at 2,936.68. Volume was 40 million shares with advancers beating out decliners 273 to issues 213.
After a big advance yesterday, the loonie abruptly changed direction. It was back down again today, dropping almost half a cent to close at US64\u00a2
In the United States., markets were split. The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 89 points at 10,013, but the Nasdaq composite advanced 47 points to close at 1,899.
The S&P 500 was off 2 points to close at 1,166.
Commentators are split on the reasons for the today’s advance in the Nasdaq. While some say it is genuine buying pressure, others say it’s just investors buying to cover short positions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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