TSX weighed by global worry, but RIM shines

TORONTO (Reuters) - The benchmark Canadian stock index fell on Friday, stung by anxiety about Spain's troubled banks and global economic frailty, but Research In Motion Ltd surged after its results impressed investors.

The resource-rich index closed out the third quarter with a gain of more than 6 percent, as energy companies and miners benefited from a strong showing in crude and bullion prices.

But gloom prevailed on Friday, as Spain's borrowing costs rose back above 6 percent despite an austere budget and business activity in the U.S. Midwest shrank for the first time in three years, the latest in a string of U.S. data.

"Spain is flaring up again," said John Kinsey, a portfolio manager at Caldwell Securities. "The economic numbers from wherever you want to draw them aren't very good."

The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> lost 21.39 points, or 0.17 percent, to close at 12,317.46, with energy and financial stocks weighing.

Canadian Natural Resources fell 1.6 percent to C$30.33 and Toronto Dominion Bank slipped 0.5 percent to C$81.99.

The most upbeat storyline belonged to RIM, whose shares jumped 8 percent to C$7.52 after the beleaguered BlackBerry maker surprised investors with a smaller-than-anticipated loss and a revenue beat thanks to strong BlackBerry sales in emerging markets such as Indonesia and India.

That optimism could yet prove to be short-lived.

"People had such low expectations and they beat it substantially," said Paul Harris, portfolio manager at Avenue Investment Management. "It's still a show-me stock."

There was otherwise little in corporate news for investors to get their teeth into, and the near-term horizon was just as bare.

"We're in a lull here, we've got two weeks before earnings for the third quarter start," Kinsey said. "There's a lot of noise out there and a lot of people are tired of it."

Enbridge Inc shares slipped 0.8 percent to C$38.40 even as the pipeline company said it had won regulatory approval to add an Alberta crude pipeline to move output from Imperial Oil Ltd's Kearl oil sands project. Imperial dipped 0.5 percent to C$45.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum and Leslie Adler)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tsx-set-open-lower-rim-rise-124656442--finance.html

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