CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Things got downright serious this past week when central banks rushed to infuse financial markets with cash — and made noise about it.

It showed that North American and European monetary leaders needed no more proof that the impact of the US credit crisis has spread from high-risk mortgages to other, far less murky, parts of the financial world, including Canada's stock market.

There, it played out in the form of steep losses.

Expect investors to be gunshy now after the credit tumult-induced 2.2 percent drop in the Toronto Stock Exchange's main index last Thursday and Friday.

The S&P/TSX composite index ended the week at 13,466 points, down eight percent from the record high it set just last month.

"We've had the wound, now we've got to heal," said Paul Hand, director of trading at RBC Capital Markets in Toronto. "And the wounding isn't always the most painful, sometimes it's the initial phase of healing."

Already, Bay Street has started to seek shelter in the safe havens of precious metals stocks and gold itself.

On Friday, gold futures rallied two percent and the Toronto bourse's materials subgroup, which includes miners such as Barrick Gold Corp. and Goldcorp Inc., ended up on the day.

Look for more of that interest in the coming week as market players struggle to gauge if the turmoil represents the start of a bear market or a correction in the middle of a bull market, said Peter Chandler, vice-president of Canaccord Capital Corp., in Waterloo, Ontario.

"Gold and precious metals have a high probability to outperform in this environment," Chandler said. "It tends to be an area where, more often than not, people will go to hide because it tends to go counter-trend to the market."