TORONTO -- North American stock indexes remained stable and the Canadian dollar was mildly positive Tuesday in the wake of bombings in Belgium that killed at least 31 people.
At mid-afternoon, the Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index was down 10.86 points at 13,550.23 as markets bounced back from earlier lows after bombings at the Brussels airport and one of the city's subway stations.
Belgium raised its terror alert to the highest level, while airports across Europe tightened security.
In commodities, the May contract for benchmark North American crude was down 18 cents at US$41.34 a barrel, while April natural gas added two cents to US$1.85 per mmBtu. April gold rose $2.20 to US$1,246.40 a troy ounce and May copper was unchanged at US$2.29 a pound.
Meanwhile, the loonie more than held its own, up 0.20 of a U.S. cent at 76.62 cents US.
In New York, markets also recovered from early weakness, with the Dow Jones industrial average up 18.22 points at 17,642.09, while the broader S&P 500 added 4.10 points to 2,055.70 and the Nasdaq composite moved up 23.49 points to 4,832.37.
"The only sector that appears to be truly suffering, naturally, is anything having to do with travel," J.J. Kinahan, TD Ameritrade's chief strategist, told The Associated Press. "And even many of those have recovered from earlier levels."
On the Toronto exchange, shares in Air Canada (TSX:AC) were down 13 cents or 1.42 per cent at $9.03, while WestJet (TSX:WJA) stock retreated 58 cents or 2.90 per cent to $19.44 and Transat AT (TSX:TRZ) stock fell 15 cents or 1.94 per cent to $7.57.
In European trading, Germany's DAX rose 0.4 per cent, while the CAC-40 in France edged up 0.1 per cent and Britain's FTSE 100 added 0.1 per cent. Belgium's BEL 20 index rose 0.2 per cent.
In earlier trading in Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 climbed 1.94 per cent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index slid 0.08 per cent and China's main Shanghai composite index shed 0.64 per cent.
