Bay Street Week Ahead-Toronto stocks' glitter not all gold

By Renato Andrade

TORONTO, May 16 (Reuters) - There was a golden moment for Canadian stocks this past week when the Toronto market's main index powered to a record high, reversing losses triggered by last year's credit crunch and concern about the U.S. economy.

But there's lead beneath the golden glimmer: the recovery is deeply lopsided, and cash is still king for many investors.

Some market sectors remain well below levels they hit last year, and a lot of Canadian money is parked in safe fixed-income assets.

"Investors are sacrificing billions of dollars in potential investment gains," said Benjamin Tal, an economist at CIBC World Markets.

Tal calculates that some C$45 billion ($45 billion) of "excess liquidity" is held in cash instruments rather than in the stock market because investors are still frightened by the market downturn that followed last summer's credit crunch.

Noting that it is traditional to have a delay between the end of a downturn and the return of investor confidence, he said the October 1987 market correction lasted two months, but investors took 16 months to reduce excess liquidity positions, even as the stock market gained more than 20 percent.

The same happened in 2001 and is happening again now.

"That's human nature, and that is usually a very common mistake, and I suspect they will repeat this mistake," Tal said.