Today in New York Wall Street bobbed in and out of positive territory Wednesday, seeking a direction a day after concerns about faltering subprime mortgage lenders sparked a broad selloff in stocks.

U.S. stocks were more stable than overseas markets were Wednesday. Japan’s Nikkei stock average closed down 2.92 percent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Sang index fell 2.57 percent and the sometimes volatile Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.97 percent. In afternoon trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 1.57 percent, Germany’s DAX index fell 1.74 percent, and France’s CAC-40 fell 1.60 percent.

After an early move to positive territory, Toronto’s S&P/TSX composite index fell 17.85 points to 12,791.75. The Canadian dollar was up 0.02 of a cent to 85.21 cents US and the TSX Venture Exchange fell 61.4 points to 2,971.47. The Dow Jones industrials rose 8.09 points to 12,084.05 after a 242.66-point drop Tuesday. The Nasdaq composite index gained 3.82 points to 2,354.39 after losing 51.72 points the day before, while the S&P 500 index added 2.91 points to 1,380.86.

The company also reported record annual earnings of US$414.4 million, or $6.37 a share, a major leap from 2005’s $152.8 million, or $2.48 per share. HudBay Minerals Inc. (TSX:HBM) fell 50 cents to $19. The problems afflicting the U.S. mortgage market have not spilled over into Canada, where banks have more rigorous lending rules and risky mortgages are rarer. But the TSX financial sector was a major decliner, down 0.37 per cent as “when sentiment goes sour for a sector, it’s hard to escape,” said Delisle.

Though they are a relatively small part of the U.S. economy, their difficulties raise larger concerns about the housing market, which until its slowdown in recent years was a big source of money for consumers. That, coupled with the Commerce Department’s report Tuesday that U.S. retailers eked out a meager 0.1 percent rise in sales last month, led Wall Street to reconsider whether Americans’ buying power will withstand an economic slowdown.

Consolidated volume on the New York Stock Exchange, where declining issues outnumbered advancers by 5 to 1, was high at 3.49 billion shares — more than the 2.62 billion shares traded a day earlier, but lower than the 4.56 billion shares traded on Feb. 27, when the Dow took its largest plunge since Sept. 17, 2001.