Another turbulent week at the North American stock markets ended Friday with Canadian stocks on the upswing and Wall Street retreating slightly.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed at 9,539.14, up 2.90 per cent.
The gains came as the values for energy stocks improved throughout the day Friday.
On the TSX, the energy sector was up after three days of oil-price declines that took crude below US$70 a barrel for the first time since August 2007.
The November crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange edged up $1.80 to US$73.45 a barrel Friday.
The gains on the TSX were made despite a new report from the Conference Board of Canada saying consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level in 26 years.
"The global credit crunch and major stock market declines clearly had an effect on consumer confidence in October," Pedro Antunes, the Conference Board's director of national and provincial forecasts, said Friday.
"In addition, consumers felt that they would be worse off in six months, indicating concerns that the financial crisis would not be resolved quickly."
In the U.S., the volatility was more apparent:
- New York's Dow Jones industrial average lost 127.04 points, closing at 8852.22
- The Nasdaq composite index was down 6.42 points closing at 1,711.29
Wall Street's drop was attributed to a report that showed housing starts at a 17-year low in the U.S. But there were a few bright spots as Google posted better than expected profits and investor-extraordinaire Warren Buffet made bullish comments on the economy.
Despite Friday's drop, the U.S. market gained on the week, buoyed by the government's intervention in bank stocks.
"What we've seen in the last day or two is a market that's really trying to find direction," TD Bank Financial Group deputy chief economist Craig Alexander told Â鶹´«Ã½net on Friday.
Alexander said investors are struggling to understand what the outlook is for the economy, including how weak it will get and how far commodity prices will fall.
"This is a market that's swinging around, I think it's one of those markets where we're going to see a lot of volatility in the near term," he said.
In his opinion, Alexander said the U.S. economy is already in a recession and that the global economy is headed for at least a "mild" recession.
"Canada cannot be immune from these developments," he said. "The Canadian economy is very export oriented... I think we are going to see the Canadian economy post little or no growth over the coming year."
In Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 4.4 per cent to its lowest level in almost three years, but Japan's Nikkei average was up 2.8 per cent after falling 11.4 per cent Thursday.
In London, the FTSE index was up 180.9 points or 4.68 per cent to 4,042.29 in London, while Germany's DAX rose 3.3 per cent and the French CAC-40 added 4.1 per cent.
With files from The Canadian Press
