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North American stock market indexes shook off another downtick among financial stocks, rising slightly at the start of trading on Friday.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 43 points, to 11,392. The broader S&P 500 rose 3 points, to 1256. In Canada, the S&P/TSX composite index rose 63 points, to 13,269.
Most of the strength came from commodity producers and stocks that have less exposure to softer economic growth. In the United States, McDonald's Corp. rose 1.4 per cent and Merck & Co. Inc. rose 1.3 per cent.
Investors also became reacquainted with energy stocks, which had sold off sharply earlier in the week with the consistently declining price of crude oil that shook confidence in the commodities bull market. EnCana Corp. rose 1.6 per cent and Suncor Energy Inc. rose 0.7 per cent, even as oil traded at $124.63 (U.S.) a barrel on Friday morning, down 86 cents.
Financials continued their weak streak, following the dramatic selloff on Thursday on newfound concerns about potential writeoffs related to the crumbling U.S. housing market. Fannie Mae fell 10.3 per cent (bringing its most recent swoon, which began on Thursday, to 30 per cent), Bank of America Corp. fell 2.6 per cent and Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. fell 2.4 per cent. Canada's Big Banks, which are by no means immune to the convulsions in the United States, followed suit: Royal Bank of Canada fell 0.6 per cent and Bank of Montreal fell 0.5 per cent.
Loblaw Cos. Ltd., which reported its second quarter results before markets opened for trading, with slightly higher-than-expected earnings, rose 0.2 per cent.
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Double Money from Canada writes: I was looking for the US market to bounce back this morning as fear oversold the market yesterday. We seem to be in an uptrend on the US market but it looks like the uptrend will stall unless oil keeps going down.
DoubleOurMoney
www.doubleourmoney.ca- Posted 25/07/08 at 10:56 AM EDT | Alert an Editor | Link to Comment
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