TORONTO - A rebound in mining stocks pushed the Toronto stock market slightly higher Wednesday.

The S&P/TSX composite index rose 33.38 points to 11,853.56 after tumbling 127 points on Tuesday amid moves by China to curtail its economic growth.

The Canadian dollar moved up 0.81 of a cent to 97.03 cents US.

China's central bank is raising the proportion of deposits that banks must hold in reserve by half a percentage point to 15 per cent of their deposits. The People's Bank of China also raised the yield it is offering on its one-year bills, its second increase in interbank markets in a week.

China has been a big support to the Toronto market as recovery there boosts commodity sectors, which stand to gain from sales to China's resource-hungry economy.

But analysts point out that the losses earlier this week follow a string of gains that pushed the TSX up almost two per cent last week alone.

"We have to remember we have been up quite strongly since the March '09 bottom," said Eric Brass, equity analyst at MFC Global Investment Management, adding the move provided a good excuse to take some profits earlier this week.

"There was too much liquidity in the system in terms of bank lending and banks tend to front-end that lending to the beginning of the year in January because they knew that the government was going to come and tighten up a little bit. So the government is just normalizing the liquidity in the system."

The TSX base metals sector was the biggest advancer, up 1.95 per cent after sliding almost four per cent Tuesday as March copper on the Nymex was ahead five cents at US$3.39 a pound. Sherritt International (TSX:S) gained nine cents to $7.42 while First Quantum Minerals (TSX:FM) gained $5.16 to $93.56.

The energy component was up slightly even as the crude contract for February on the New York Mercantile Exchange declined $1.14 to US$80.09 a barrel. The U.S. Department of Energy reported bigger-than-expected increases in crude and distillate products last week, including heating oil. Crude oil supplies were up 3.7 million barrels in the week ended Jan. 8 against estimates of a gain of about one million barrels.

EnCana Corp. (TSX:ECA) fell 74 cents to $36.32 and Canadian Oilsands Trust (TSX:COS.UN) stepped back 49 cents to $29.11 .

The gold sector was ahead 0.32 per cent as the February bullion contract in New York gained $7.40 to US$1,136.80 an ounce.

Barrick Gold Corp. (TSX:ABX) has launched a lawsuit against New Gold Inc. (TSX:NGD) in an attempt to stop the junior miner from selling 70 per cent of the El Morro copper-gold project in Chile to Goldcorp (TSX:G). Barrick shares added three cents to $41.95, Goldcorp shares inched up a penny to $42.55 and New Gold declined a dime to $4.63.

Gammon Gold Inc. (TSX:GAM) says "unanticipated events" at its Ocampo mine led to lower production in the fourth quarter. Gammon said production was 64,007 gold equivalent ounces versus 73,766 ounces in the same period the prior year. Its shares closed down 32 cents to $11.60.

The consumer discretionary sector was also weak, with shares in auto parts maker Magna International Inc. (TSX:MG.A) down $2.92 to $59.47 after it said it expects its 2010 sales to be in a range of US$19.5 billion to US$20.5 billion, in line with 12 analyst estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters.

Corus Entertainment Inc. (TSX: CJR.B) shares declined 12 cents to $19.47 even as the company reported a $73.9-million profit in its fiscal first quarter, an 82 per cent improvement that came as advertising revenues began to rebound in November. Corus says its revenues also rose to $222.3 million from $216.8 million a year ago.

Elsewhere in the sector, Cogeco Cable Inc. (TSX:CCA) says it's raising most of its financial targets for 2010 as a result of steady performance at its Canadian operations and signs that its European subsidiary is stabilizing after a period of intense competition. Its shares climbed $2.08 to $36.80.

The TSX Venture Exchange rose 16.04 points to 1,593.21.

New York indexes moved higher as investors took in the latest economic assessment from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Its so-called Beige Book says that although "economic activity remains at a low level, conditions have improved modestly further." However, the Fed also notes that "labour market conditions remained soft" in most of the Fed's 12 regions as the new year started.

The Dow Jones industrial average moved 53.51 points higher to 10,680.77, the Nadaq composite index was up 25.59 points to 2,307.9 while the S&P 500 index climbed 9.46 points to 1,145.68.

Google shares dipped slightly following the company's threat to withdraw from China. The company said it will no longer censor its search results in the country after finding that hackers had led human-rights activists to reveal their email accounts to outsiders.

New York indexes were also supported by the financial sector as the heads of several big banks testified before the U.S. Congress' Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission about the financial crisis.

While the executives agreed that banks' actions contributed to the crisis that paralysed the credit markets and worsened the recession, investors did not hear anything from the hearings that would encourage them to flee financial stocks.