Friday, February 12, 2010 4:34 PM
The close: Dow, TSX recover into weekend
David Berman
For a day that could have turned into a rout for North American stock market indexes, investors will probably be pleasantly surprised to see the relatively calm finish. Stocks ended the day with modest losses, after recovering from a steep selloff at the start, as investors worried about the impact from China’s surprise decision to raise the reserve requirements at its banks, potentially slowing economic growth there.
The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 10,099.14, down 45.05 points, or 0.4 per cent. At its low point for the day, soon after stocks began trading, the index had been down about 160 points. The broader S&P 500 closed at 1075.51, down 2.96 points, or 0.3 per cent. In Canada, the S&P/TSX composite index closed at 11,469.81, up 34.32 points, or 0.3 per cent – after recovering more than 130 points from its low earlier in the day.
If the news from China didn’t worry investors, then the low fourth quarter growth in Europe – at a mere 0.1 per cent – did the trick, convincing some that the economic recovery was sputtering with or without a solution to the European debt crisis.
Still, U.S. retail sales for January rose 0.5 per cent, beating expectations among economists and providing a glimmer of hope. As well, investors welcomed upbeat strategic moves from Motorola Inc. (splitting itself in two companies) and JDS Uniphase Corp. (will buy the network-testing equipment business of Agilent Technologies), which helped to drive technology stocks higher.
In Canada, technology stocks also rose, with Research In Motion Ltd. up 3.3 per cent. As well, Yellow Pages Income Fund rose 5.2 per cent after it reported strong fourth quarter results.
However, commodity producers were held back by a slight decline in the price of crude oil and gold. Suncor Energy Inc. fell 1.2 per cent and Goldcorp Inc. fell 0.2 per cent.
Life insurers Manulife Financial Corp. and Sun Life Financial Inc., which fell on Thursday after reporting disappointing quarterly results, continued to decline on Friday. Manulife fell another 0.9 per cent while Sun Life fell 1 per cent.
For the week, the S&P 500 rose 0.9 per cent. Materials rose 1.7 per cent and consumer discretionary stocks and energy stocks rose 1.6 per cent each. The S&P/TSX composite index performed considerably better, rising 2.2 per cent during the week. Materials rose 4.3 per cent, information technology stocks rose 3.1 per cent and financials rose 2.5 per cent.
