By Jeff Sanford

(January 23 – 18:30 ET) – It was as good day for Toronto stocks in the wake of this morning’s Bank of Canada rate cut. After opening higher, the TSE 300 climbed through the day to close up a strong 147.89 points at 9,268.84.

The strength was market wide, with only the gold sub-index finishing lower today. It was down 1.89%.

Leading on the upside was the pipelines sub-index, which gained 3.63%. The industrial sub-index gained 2.76%. Metals and minerals was up 2.57%.

Many investors who had been sitting on the sidelines through recent doldrums found reasons to get back into the market. Today’s volume of 189 million shares reflected that.

In terms of market breadth, the trend was up, but not drastically so. While 558 issues finished higher, some 494 closed lower.

In the wake of yesterday’s delisting announcement, investors abandoned penny stock Williams Multi-tech. It was the most heavily traded issue today, with volume exceeding 33 million shares. The stock crashed 33.33% to close at 3¢.

Nortel Networks was second most heavily traded issue on the TSE today. It gained 3.81% to $60.

Gulf Canada, the third most heavily traded stock on the day, packed on 5.88% to $8.10. JDS Uniphase jumped 7.23% to $98.65, while Celestica also did well, rising 5.04% to $110.50.

An announced alliance today between NAME Inc. and ATG (both e-commerce firms) sent stock in NAME soaring 42.86% to 31¢.

Investors were less than thrilled with Corel’s profitability plan. Perhaps the word underwhelmed would be appropriate. The company basically announced it would focus on it core software lines and didn’t mention anything about its Linux business or possible sales of that division. Stock in Corel plunged 21.36% to $4.64.

Inco strengthened somewhat today, rising 4.48% to close at $23.09.

The banks did well in the wake of the announced 25 basis point rate cut. Some of the more heavily traded stocks were Bank of Nova Scotia, up 2% to $43.25, and CIBC jumping 2.58% to $49.75.

The CDNX was flat today, rising less than 1% to 3,155.64, even though volume was relatively heavy at 46 million shares. Declining issues slightly outpaced advancing issues, 278 to 269.

Currency traders weren’t impressed with the Bank of Canada’s actions, as the loonie dropped 0.42% to close at US66.25¢.

Markets in New York had a strong day, with all indexes making healthy advances on broad, market-wide buying interest.

The Dow gained 70.45 points to 10,648.69, an increase of 0.67%. The Nasdaq composite jumped 82.21 points to 2,840.12, an increase of 2.98%. The S&P 500 added 17.14 points to 1,360.04, an advance of 1.28%.