(RTTNews) - Canadian stocks finished Thursday’s session with only a modest loss, fighting back in the final hour of trading as investors picked up deeply discounted energy stocks. It was another roller coaster ride on Bay Street, where stocks have whipsawed wildly over the past few days, rising nearly 900 points on Tuesday before giving back 650 points in the previous session.

After being down more than 100 points in mid-afternoon dealing, the S&P/TSX Composite Index slipped 53.88 points to 9,269.97. Last Friday, the main index closed at a 3 1/2 year low of 9,065. Significant weakness emerged in the gold sector, keeping the composite in the red.

The price of oil closed below $70 for the first time in more than a year, but energy stocks were still able to rise 2 percent, paring some of their massive recent losses. Canadian Oil Sands (COS.UN.TO) rose 10.5 percent.

Gold stocks plunged 9.5 percent. Barrick Gold (ABX.TO), Kinross (K.TO) and Goldcorp (G.TO) shares fell between 10 and 15 percent.

NovaGold Resources Inc. (NG.TO) reported its third quarter earnings of C$16.7 million or C$0.16 per share, compared to a loss of C$4.2 million or C$0.04 per share in the same quarter last year. NovaGold shares fell 17.5 percent.

The price of the precious metal fell to a monthly low on Thursday as traders turned futures contracts into cash. December gold moved to $804.50, down $34.50 for the session, its sixth consecutive negative close. The metal hit as low as $791.00 in midday trading.

A day after Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper won election but fell short of winning for his Conservative Party a Parliamentary majority, he unveiled a six-point economic plan to insulate the country from the ongoing global financial crisis, media reports said.

Harper’s economic plan announced Wednesday includes controlling public-spending, introducing a fiscal plan before Parliament by the end of next month, calling for another meeting of G-7 finance ministers to build on past progress and attending next month’s G-20 meeting.

“The No 1 job of the Prime Minister of Canada is to protect this country’s economy, our earnings, our savings, and our jobs, during a time of global economic uncertainty,” Harper said. “The mandate we received allows us to continue moving forward.”

Meanwhile, manufacturers had a notable pull-back in sales in August following four consecutive monthly increases, according to data from Statistics Canada released Thursday morning. August’s decrease erased all of the gains since December 2007, moving constant dollar sales to the lowest level in eight months.

Sales decreased 3.7% to $52.0 billion, erasing most of the gains from the previous two months. Analysts were looking for sales to decrease a modest 0.6%.

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