By Jeff Sanford
(April 4 – 18:30 ET) – The markets had a chaotic day, swinging wildly between gains and losses. The TSE 300 opened low but seesawed through the day. It sold off during the afternoon, and closed down 28.88 points at 7,415.50.
Investors piled into gold again today looking for safety. The gold sub-index jumped almost 4%. Also closing higher were conglomerates, metals, paper and utilities.
On the downside, communications, pipelines and financial services led, with losses over 1%. The overall market trend was down as nine sub-indices suffered losses and only five advanced.
Among individual issues, advancers outpaced decliners 536 to 403 declined. Volume was light at 138 million shares.
Although the TSE 300 fluctuated throughout the day, individual price changes were relatively constrained.
The financials saw the most consistent action. Some of the bigger movements were Investors Group down 5.94% at $18.20, National Bank down 2.23% at $27.265 and CIBC down 2.08% at $48.95.
Gulf Canada was off 3.24% at $8.37 as that stock continues to get tossed around on speculation that the company will soon be taken over.
Among gold stocks, Placer Dome was up 4.30% to $14.80, while Barrick was up 3.93% to close at $23.80
Group Telecom, a Canadian competitive local exchange carrier, was up 8.93% on news that it has expanded its operations into the Kitchener Waterloo area.
Among the techs, Nortel moved only 0.10%, leaving it off 2\u00a2 at $20.40. Techs that did move included 360Networks which plunged 12.73% to close at $4.80, and CGI which was down 5.67% at $5.16.
Teck Corp announced this week that it has successfully completed its 2001 coal sales from its Elkview mine (bought up by the Japanese steel industry). Traders today bid up Teck shares 6.38% to close at $15.
The CDNX finished the day relatively unchanged, dropping less than a point to close at 2,907.46. Volume was relatively light on the small cap exchange as well, with only 38 million shares trading. Market breadth was almost neutral with advancers edging out decliners 225 to 218.
The loonie corrected somewhat today, climbing over half a cent to close at US63.69\u00a2.
The action in New York was as up and down as it was north of the borde. But while Nasdaq composite index finished down 34.20 points at 1,638.80 and the S&P 500 was off 3.21 points at 1,103.25, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 29.71 points to close at 9,515.42.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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