By Jeff Sanford

(December 8 – 18:00 ET) – What a week. After opening on Monday below the 9000 mark, the Toronto Stock Exchange 300 composite index finished off the week well above it — 9548.70.

A U.S. employment report indicating slow job growth convinced investors that the U.S. Federal Reserve will be lowering interest rates soon, injecting some optimism into the markets. As a result, the TSE 300 finished up 4.17% today.

Within the TSE, the strength came from the tech-laden industrial products sub-sector. It climbed an incredible 8.55%. That wasn’t the only area of strength though. Consumer products, and the biotechs, moved ahead 6.25 while pipelines finished up 4.34%.

Also doing well were the conglomerates, up 3.08%; real estate, up 3.19%; metals, up 2.88% and financial services, up 2.39%.

The only subsector down today was communications. It fell 2.23%.

Among individual issues, the momentum was strongly in favour of advancers, with 680 issues moving up on the day and 426 declining. It seems everyone wanted to get a piece of the action, as investors poured back into the market. Volume was substantial — 218 million shares at the closing bell.

Seagram stock plummetted 7.89% to close at $75.35. It was the most heavily traded stock on the TSE. Approximately 27 million shares moved on the TSE.

Nortel was second with 12 million shares trading. It rocketed ahead to close up 11.31% at $65.45. JDS Uniphase also made a strong advance of 8.31% to finish at $114.00.

Among the financials, TD bank did well, gaining 3.42% to close at $43.80. Bank of Nova Scotia did even better, closing up 5.55% at $41.85. National Bank of Canada was also up strongly. It gained 5.10% to $26.80.

In the oil patch, TransCanada Pipe, finished up 5.88% at $22.50 and Methanex was up 6.10% at $8.70.

In the biotechs, BioChem Pharma moved ahead 5.96% on the day to close at $40.00.

The CDNX shared in the optimism today. It finished ahead 34.40 points at 2908.66. Volume was 40 million shares, with 354 advancing and 264 declining.

Though the Canadian dollar opened slightly lower today, it managed climb back and close up 0.14% at 65.74¢ U.S.

In the U.S., the NASDAQ composite index finished ahead 164.77 points on the day at 2917.42. The Dow Jones industrial average finished up 95.55 points at 10712.91.