The Toronto stock market held to a modest advance Friday afternoon as traders reacted to violent protests in Egypt by pushing up crude oil and gold prices.
The S&P/TSX composite index added 27.38 points Friday to end the week at 13,437.58
The Canadian dollar moved below parity as traders flocked to the perceived safe haven of the U.S. dollar, falling 0.73 of a cent to 99.92 cents U.S.
The Egyptian government’s response to escalating street protests unnerved investors. Riot police fired tear gas and rubber bullets and used water cannons to disperse a crowd that had gathered in the largest challenge to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.
Investors, some experts are saying, are using the violence as a reason to take profits.
In the gold sector Barrick Gold Corp. gained $1.28 to $47.30 while Goldcorp Inc. gained 33 cents to $40.74.
In the energy sector, Cenovus Energy improved 73 cents to $33.38 and Canadian Natural Resources climbed $1.13 to $43.03
The base metals sector led decliners, even as the March copper contract on the Nymex added three cents to $4.37 U.S. a pound. Equinox Minerals lost 17 cents to $5.85 while Teck Resources declined $1.20 to $57.93.
Financial stocks also pressured the TSX as Bank of Montreal fell 77 cents to $57.84 and TD Bank lost 77 cents to $74.59.
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has been knocked out of the top five mobile phone sellers globally, says tech research company IDC. Apple stayed in the top five, but slipped to fifth spot in the last quarter of 2010 despite a record quarter for shipments of its iPhone, IDC said Friday. RIM shares eased $1.32 to $60.13.
Mutual fund and wealth management company AGF Management Ltd. said fourth-quarter profit fell sharply to $31 million amid higher expenses, lower revenue and the absence of an income tax rebate recorded a year earlier. Its shares declined 87 cents to $17.99.
A regulatory panel has conditionally approved Total E&P Canada’s proposed Joslyn North oilsands mine, 70 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, Alta., with operations set to start in 2017. Suncor Energy Inc. picked up a minority interest in Joslyn through a $1.75-billion deal with the French-owned E&P late last year. Suncor shares gained $1.49 to $40.04.
Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., which owns the largest share of the massive Syncrude oilsands mine, has posted better than expected fourth-quarter results. Net income rose from $96 million, or 20 cents per share, in the last three months of 2009 to $311 million, or 64 cents per share, in the same 2010 period.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had, on average, been calling for Canadian Oil Sands to earn 41 cents per share. Its stock gained 34 cents to $26.64.
On the economic front, Statistics Canada reported this morning that average weekly earnings of non-farm payroll employees rose in November by 4.4% to $865.17 on a year-to-year basis.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange jumped 34.35 points to 2,268.32, while the Nasdaq Canada index was down 15.70 to 749.38.
In Toronto, all but four of the 14 subgroups finished the day negative Global base metals and the metals and mining group each tumbled 1.9%, , while consumer discretionaries were 1.2% to the bad.
Three of the four gainers were gold, up 1.8%, energy stocks, ahead 1.6%, and materials, gaining 1%.
ON WALLSTREET
In New York, stocks tumbled to new lows Friday afternoon, logging the biggest drops in months, as investors grew nervous about political unrest in Egypt.
The Dow Jones Industrials collapsed 166.13 points, or 1.4%, to 11,823.70. A 4% drop in Microsoft's stock led the blue chips lower despite the company posting record sales of $20 billion U.S. The losses also put the Dow on track for its first weekly decline and biggest daily drop since November.
The S&P 500 was 23.20 points lower to 1,276.34, dragged down by Monster Worldwide, which issued a weak outlook, and Ford, which posted lower-than-expected earnings. The tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 68.39 points, with shares of Amazon sinking almost 8%.
Investors are worried that the situation in Egypt could intensify over the weekend, and are taking some money off the table ahead of that possibility.
Stocks managed to log modest gains Thursday, pushing the Dow and S&P to their highest levels since the summer of 2008. The Dow ended four points higher at 11,989.83 -- just shy of the 12,000 mark, while the S&P ticked up three points to end just below 1,300.
Economically speaking, the U.S. economy grew at a 3.2% annual rate in the fourth quarter, according to an advance reading on gross domestic product released Friday morning. That's up from a 2.6% rate in the third quarter.
Though the figure missed economists' expectations for a slightly higher 3.5% rate, personal consumption, a measure of consumer spending, jumped by 4.4% in the fourth quarter -- the strongest increase in that reading in at least four years.
The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index rose to 74.2 in January, slightly better than the 73.2 expected by economists.
Prices on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury gained Friday, dropping the yield to 3.33% from Thursday’s 3.39%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil for February delivery soared in price by $3.52 to $89.16 U.S. a barrel.
Gold futures for February delivery climbed $22.30, or $1.7%, to settle at $1,340.70 U.S. an ounce
