Stocks on Bay Street reversed course Thursday afternoon and finished higher -- as investors brushed off bad news from the auto sector and took in a healthy earnings report from a major broadcaster.
The S&P/TSX composite index leapt 191.25 points to 8,879.61.
Shaw Communications Inc. said Wednesday its first-quarter earnings increased 10% to $123.1 million compared with a year ago. Revenue in the quarter totalled $817.5 million, up from $743.8 million. Its shares rose 19 cents to $20.14.
In other news, shares in aerospace technology manufacturer Heroux-Devtek Inc. were unchanged at $4.35 after it said it has secured a contract to build landing gear parts for Fokker Services worth between $15 million and $24 million based on current projections. Shares in Heroux-Devtek improved 15 cents to $4.50.
On the data front, new motor vehicle sales fell 7% in November to 129,044, the largest monthly decline since August 2005. Statistics Canada attributes most of the decrease to lower sales of passenger cars.
Down South -- the Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment benefits increased 54,000 to 524,000 for the week ended January 10 on a seasonally adjusted basis. The jobless claims figure was greater than the consensus of 501,000.
The Labor Department also said the producer price index, which measures the costs of goods before they reach consumers, retracted 1.9% in December, following a 2.2% decline in November and a 2.8% drop in October on a seasonally adjusted basis. Economists had predicted a 2% decline.
In other data, RealtyTrac reported Thursday that more than 2.3 million homeowners in the U.S. faced foreclosure proceedings in 2008, an 81% increase from 2007, and more than 860,000 properties were actually repossessed by lenders, more than double the 2007 level.
The Canadian dollar, meanwhile, was trading flat to 79.86 cents US.
BAYSTREET
All but one of the TSX sub-groups were trading higher -- gold surged 5.1%, followed by materials, ahead 4.3% and industrials, up 3.3%.
Real estate was the only laggard, off 0.3%
COMEX gold for February delivery fell $1.50 to $807.30 an ounce.
Meanwhile, the TSX Venture Exchange was 5.23 points lower at 844.30 and the NASDAQ Canada was up 34.44 points to 494.12
ON WALLSTREET
The stock market's late Thursday turnaround proved modest, but still enough to snap the Dow Jones Industrial Average's longest losing streak since early October in the wake of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s collapse.
Earlier Thursday, a triple-digit slide had the Dow Jones Industrial Average below 8,000. But at the finish, the blue-chip index was up 12.35 points at 8,212.49, with 18 of its 30 components posting gains for the day.
The S&P 500 inched ahead 1.12 points at 843.74. The Nasdaq was up 22.20 at 1511.84
JP Morgan Chase announced fourth-quarter profit of 7 cents per share, besting analyst expectations of a flat quarter, according to a consensus compiled by Thomson Reuters. The banking company reported a 1% decline in revenue to $17.2 billion in revenue, below the analysts' forecast of $18.8 billion.
Bank of America is negotiating for billions more in aid from the federal government to digest its recent acquisition of Merrill Lynch, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs said after U.S. markets closed Wednesday that he will take a medical leave of absence from the company until the end of June.
Treasury prices slipped, raising the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 2.21% from 2.20% Wednesday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions. Yields on the 2-year, 10-year and 30-year Treasurys all hit record lows last month.
U.S. light crude oil for February delivery fell $2.10 to $35.18 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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