TORONTO (Reuters) - The recent plunge in Toronto stocks spurred a scramble by investors to find safe corners of the market, and one island of relative calm that they found came as a surprise given that the selloff was sparked by a credit crunch.

During the market's month-long fall, investors who worried about how bad it could get fled high-performing sectors such as mines and metals and industrials in favor of safe havens such as utilities and consumer staples.

But they also huddled in the financial sector. That's surprising because it was the US financial sector that spawned the subprime mortgage-market meltdown that led to the global financial crisis of late July and early August.

That crisis eventually reached Canada via a drying up of liquidity in the asset-backed commercial paper market.

Financials were the second-best performer, behind consumer staples, on the Toronto Stock Exchange through the July 19 to August 16 fall.

The sector shed only eight percent, while Toronto's key S&P/TSX composite index gave up more than 12 percent.

Kate Warne, Canadian market strategist at Edward Jones in St. Louis, Missouri, suggested that the sectors that were strong during the selloff, particularly financials, show that investors, shaken though they were, managed to retain confidence in the strength of the Canadian economy.

"While there were worries about the amount of subprime exposure that the Canadian banks held, toward the end of this period we were getting a bit more information that suggested it wasn't large," she said, adding that the fundamentals of individual firms remain mostly sound.

The materials sector, which covers mines and metals, on the other hand, was under pressure from doomsday predictions about the global economy, although there was little specific news to suggest Asia's appetite for commodities was abating.

Materials took the most severe beating during the Toronto stock selloff, forfeiting 16.3 percent, but came back strongly in the past week's rebound.

The other top rebounder was none other than the financials sector, which, uniquely, outperformed on both sides of the correction.

"The financials represent the best mix of reward and risk across the broadest range of possible outcomes," said George Vasic, equity strategist at UBS Securities Canada.