Stocks up on Euro debt hopes

Today on Stockhouse

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Peter Kennedy reports on a former Immigration Canada official who is a 500 million-share man in his Stockhouse Short Report.

Top Bullboards post: “RMP has done extremely well since their re-organization from an operational POV, and SP has lagged. We are now witnessing SP fundamentals catching up with E&P fundamentals. Q4 will be a good quarter. Does anyone have recent production data on their NG side, I suspect that they are just letting the dry stuff decline and concentrating on oil side, but that's the only negative that I can see in the S/T and NG will be a smaller and smaller factor going forward.” From shambano1 on the RMP Energy (TSX: T.RMP, Stock Forum) board.

Top Bullboard: Connacher Oil and Gas (TSX: T.CLL, Stock Forum) received the most reads and the third-most posts.

Top blog:James54 provides another top mining stock pick for 2012 in the miningstocksguide.com blog.

For news about small stocks that made big moves Thursday’s trading, please read the Stockhouse Canadian Small and Micro-cap Stock Report.

Word on Wall Street

"We heard all kinds of wonderfully optimistic anecdotal reports from the field that it was a record holiday season," said Sal Arnuk, co-head of trading at Themis Trading, in an interview with CNNMoney. "Now we see that the supposed record sales were not so great."

Today In The Markets

TSX little changed: optimism over European bond auctions tempered by U.S. data

DJIA	12,471.02	+21.57
NASDAQ	2,724.70	+13.94
S&P500	1,295.50	+3.02
S&P/TSX	12,274.32	+13.38
S&P/TSX Venture	1,540.50	+9.38

TORONTO-NEW YORK (The Canadian Press) - The Toronto stock market eked out a small gain Thursday as investors balanced disappointment in two U.S. economic reports with the positive influence of successful bond auctions by Italy and Spain.

The S&P/TSX composite index rose 13.38 points to 12,274.32 while the TSX Venture Exchange was ahead 9.38 points to 1,540.5.

The Dow industrials rose 21.57 points to 12,471.02 as U.S. retail sales rose by only 0.1 per cent in December against expectations for a 0.2 per cent rise. And during the most important month of the year for retailers, the strength last month was led by a 1.5 per cent jump in auto sales.

Please click here for the complete U.S. and Canadian market summaries.

After-Hours News

Shutterfly, Inc. (NASDAQ: SFLY, Stock Forum)
Shutterfly, Inc., a leading Internet-based social expression and personal publishing service, announced that Mark Rubash, senior vice president and CFO will leave Shutterfly on February 24, 2012 to pursue a personal passion with an early stage medical technology company. President and CEO, Jeff Housenbold and Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer, Brian Manca will assume Mark's responsibilities while the Company conducts an immediate search for a new CFO. "We thank Mark for his contributions to Shutterfly and wish him well as he follows a personal interest in technologies that improve the quality of healthcare with an early stage, cardiovascular diagnostic services company," said Jeffrey Housenbold, president and chief executive officer.

Sandstorm Gold Ltd. (TSX: V.SSL, Stock Forum)
Sandstorm Gold Ltd. announced that it has entered into a revolving credit agreement with The Bank of Nova Scotia which allows the Company to borrow up to US$50 million. The Revolving Loan has a term of three years, which is extendable by mutual consent of The Bank of Nova Scotia and Sandstorm. Sandstorm intends to use the Revolving Loan for the acquisition of gold streams. The amounts drawn on the Revolving Loan are subject to interest at LIBOR plus 3.00%-4.25% per annum, and the undrawn portion of the Revolving Loan is subject to a standby fee of 0.75%-1.05% per annum, dependent on the Company's leverage ratio.