Stock markets surged after U.S. bank Wells Fargo & Co. surprised investors with an early profit report that beat analysts' expectations.
The bank expects first-quarter earnings at a record $3 billion U.S. because of a strong pickup in its lending business.
The exciting news served to counteract record Canadian jobless figures announced Thursday.
The latest figures showed Canada lost another 61,300 jobs in March as the unemployment rate hit 8% for the first time in seven years.
The jobless rate, which had stood at 7.7% the previous month, has been rising since October.
Analysts had predicted the economy would shed about 55,000 jobs last month.
Toronto's S&P/TSX composite index flew 217.84 points higher, to finish off a short week at 9.187.12
Shares of Telus fell $3.92 or 11% to $31.58 after it said its first-quarter wireless revenue will be weak after the weak economy led to a 46% drop in wireless subscriber additions.
The telecom sector moved down following the Telus warning. Rogers Communications declined $1.35 to $27.05 and BCE Inc. gave back 46 cents to $25.52.
The Wells Fargo news boosted the Toronto financial sector more than four per cent. Manulife Financial Corp. ran ahead $1.68 to $18.15 and Royal Bank gained $1.24 to $39.19
The Toronto market got extra lift from the energy sector, as EnCana Corp. gained 76 cents to $54.73 and Suncor Inc. climbed $1.12 to $31.62.
The gold sector was also a weight, as Goldcorp Inc. declined $1.18 to $36.45.
Canwest Global Communications Corp. shares fell 1.5 cents to 30 cents as the media giant reported a quarterly net loss of $1.44 billion including a $1.19-billion writedown of assets, mostly in its newspapers.
Back on the economic front, Canadian new-home prices fell for a fifth straight month in February, led by declines in Western cities such as Edmonton and Vancouver.
Prices declined 0.7% from January and were down 1.8% from a year earlier, Statistics Canada said. Economists predicted new-home prices would fall 0.5% from the month before, according to the median estimate of economists in a Bloomberg survey.
The year-over-year decline was the largest since September 1996.
Prices in Edmonton fell 3% from January, while the new-house price index for Vancouver was down 2.9%, the agency said.
Also, StatsCan said Canada had a trade surplus of $126 million – up from a deficit of $1.2 billion in January as exports rose 5.2% to $33.1 billion as all sectors increased and automakers resumed production. Imports were up 1.1% to $33 billion, led by machinery and equipment.
The Canadian dollar jumped 0.78 cents to 81.65 cents U.S.
ON BAYSTREET
Of the 13 TSX subgroups, 10 were positive. Metals and mining screamed 7.9% ahead, followed by financials, up 5.7%, and industrials, advancing 3.8%.
The three groups in reverse were telecoms, off 4.4%, gold, down 3%, and materials, sliding 0.5%.
The TSX Venture Exchange was up 18.27points to 968.87 while the Nasdaq Canada Index gained 21.04 points to 613.30
ON WALLSTREET
The Dow Jones Industrials average surged 246.27 points – or more than 3% - to finish a very volatile week at 8.038.8
The S&P 500 index improved 31.40 points to 856.56, while the Nasdaq added 61.88 points to 1,652.54.
San-Francisco-based Wells Fargo said it expects to report income of about $3 billion U.S., or 55 cents per share, in the first quarter, surpassing analysts' current estimates.
The bank said the strong quarter was due to the performance of its traditional banking and mortgage units, as well as the continued benefits from its purchase of Wachovia. Wells' shares jumped 28%.
A variety of financial shares surged in tandem, including Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.
In other news, U.K. bank Barclays said it will sell its U.S.-based asset management business to European private equity firm CVC Capital Partners Group in a deal worth $4.4 billion. U.S.-traded shares of Barclays gained 11%.
Moody's ratings agency downgraded Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway's top-notch credit rating, citing its investment losses.
Dutch bank ING said it would sell up to $10.6 billion U.S. to raise capital. The company plans to sell 10 to 15 businesses and will shift its attention to the European market.
March sales at U.S. retailers slumped 1.8%, versus expectations for a drop of 0.9%. The results were something of a setback following an improvement in February, when sales rose 0.3%.
Many retailers blamed the weaker sales on the later Easter this year - with the holiday falling on April 12 versus March 23 last year.
Leading retailer Wal-Mart Stores reported a 1.4% rise in sales at stores open a year or more, a retail sector metric known as same-store sales. But that was short of the 3.2% rise analysts were expecting.
Wal-Mart lost 3.2% and was one of only three Dow stocks not participating in Thursday's advance.
Two government reports were released Thursday. The February trade gap shrank 28.3%, falling to its smallest level since November 1999.
The weekly jobless claims report showed the number of people filing new claims for unemployment dipped to 654,000 from 674,000 the previous week. But the number of people who have been receiving benefits for a week or more rose to an all-time high of 5.84 million.
Treasury prices tumbled, raising the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 2.92% from 2.88% Wednesday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
The May crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose $1.55 to $50.93 U.S. a barrel.
The June bullion contract on the Nymex moved down $2.60 to $883.30 U.S.
