Toronto's main index recovered from a triple-digit loss in the morning, amid concerns over fraud charges against Goldman Sachs overshadowing Citigroup's stronger-than-expected quarterly results.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index ended the day ahead 32.31 points to 12,102.97
CIBC regained 1% to $76.01, BMO grew 0.4% to $64.15 and TMX Group dropped moved 0.4% to $28.97
Citigroup earned $0.15 per share in the first-quarter, beating analysts' expectations of a break-even quarter.
Traders fretted over the uncertain future of Goldman Sachs, as Germany and the U.K. called for probe of the investment bank after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission slapped fraud charges against Wall Street giant on Friday for misstating and omitting key facts about a financial product tied to subprime mortgages.
Among energy stocks, Suncor Energy recovered 0.8% to $33.93, but Petrobakken Energy fell 1.5% to $26.34.
Oil and gas producer BlackPearl Resources, which announced plans to raise $26.1 million from the sale of nine million of its shares, slid 1% to $2.99, after being down as much as 6% during the day.
The Diversified Metals and Mining Index shed strength, as Teck Resources fell 0.7% to $42.38 and Quadra Mining gave in 1.6% to $16.19.
Inmet Mining lost 0.5% to $57.69. The Toronto-based miner announced that employees ended a strike at its Ok Tedi mine in Papua New Guinea. The strike is estimated to have cut the mine's copper production for 2010 by approximately 5,000 tonnes and gold production by 18,000 ounces.
Among gold stocks, Goldcorp trimmed 0.2% to $39.35, Barrick Gold crept into the green by four cents to $39.69, while Yamana Gold dropped 0.9% to $10.13.
Meanwhile, the health-care sector gained ground, with MDS advancing 0.8% to $9.12 and CML Healthcare Income Fund gaining 2.1% to $11.88.
Rogers Communications added 1.2% to $34.97. The diversified communications and media company today unveiled a new series of high definition personal video recorders with hard drive capacity of up to 500 GB.
In economic news, Statistics Canada said foreign investments in Canadian securities were up by $6.7 billion in February. Meanwhile, Canadian acquired $3.9 billion of foreign debt and equities in February.
The Canadian dollar eased 0.17 cents to 98.52 cents U.S.
ON BAYSTREET
The 14 TSX subgroups were evenly split between gainers and losers. The former group was led by financials, up 0.9%, telecoms, gaining 0.8%, and utilities, moving ahead 0.6%.
The laggards were weighed by global base metals, off 0.7%, consumer staples, down 0.4%, information technology, trailing Friday’s close by 0.3%.
The TSX Venture Exchange shed 13.09 points to 1,653.75, while the Nasdaq Canada index tumbled 13.73 points to 779.02.
ON WALLSTREET
In New York, a choppy market turned higher late in the session, with a recovery in financials driving the turnaround, as worries about the fallout from Goldman Sachs cooled and investors geared up for the release of IBM's quarterly report.
The Dow Jones industrial average strengthened 73.39 points to 11,092.05.
The S&P 500 index regained 5.39 points to 1,197.52. The Nasdaq composite index gave back 1.15 points to 2,480.11.
Stocks seesawed through the morning as enthusiasm about Citigroup's strong profit report vied with the fallout from Goldman Sachs' fraud charge. A better-than-expected reading on leading economic indicators was also in play, while the strong dollar hurt commodity shares.
Stocks tumbled in the early afternoon, with technology, financial and energy leading the declines. But a recovery in financials near the close helped the Dow move higher and the Nasdaq cut losses.
Reports said that the Securities and Exchange Commission voted this afternoon to go through with its fraud charges against Goldman Sachs, first announced Friday. But the SEC reportedly voted to push through the charges by a narrow three-to-two majority, cooling some worries about the strength of the case and the likelihood that regulators will pursue similar charges against other firms.
Stocks slipped Friday after the SEC said it was charging Goldman Sachs with defrauding investors. Financial shares tumbled, with Goldman Sachs losing almost 13%. The financial sector continued to drive the broader market Monday. After rallying in the morning, the stocks tumbled at midday, only to recover in the late afternoon. The KBW Bank sector index rose 0.6%.
The declines last Friday fell at the end of an otherwise upbeat period on Wall Street. The Dow and Nasdaq have risen for eight of the last nine weeks and the S&P 500 for seven of the last nine weeks. Last week, the Dow and S&P 500 moved just below 18-month highs, while the Nasdaq reached a near 22-month high.
The company reported quarterly profit that trounced Wall Street estimates, earning $4.4 billion U.S. or 15 cents U.S. per share, versus a loss a year ago. Analysts thought Citi would report break even in the quarter, according to a survey by tracker Thomson Reuters.
The quarter was driven by higher trading revenue, particularly in the company's bond business. But Citi's CEO warned that the company remains cautious on its outlook, given the uncertain economic recovery.
Roughly 25% of the S&P 500 or 123 companies are due to report results this week, including 11 Dow components. Earnings are currently on track to have risen 41% from a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters. Revenues are on track to have climbed 11% from a year ago.
IBM reports results after the close. The Dow component is expected to have earned $1.93 U.S. per share, up from $1.70 U.S. a year earlier.
On the economic front, the index of leading economic indicators rose 1.4% in March, marking 12 consecutive gains, following an upwardly revised increase of 0.4% in February. Analysts polled by MarketWatch had expected a gain of 1.3% in March.
Toyota will pay a $16.4-million U.S. fine for failing to notify the Department of Transportation about a defect in its cars, according to a senior Transportation Department official.
Prices for U.S. Treasurys dropped, with the yield on the 10-year note climbing to 3.81% from Friday’s 3.77%. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions
The price of a barrel of oil slid $1.63 to $81.61 U.S.
Gold prices fell two dollars to $1,135 U.S. an ounce.
