By Jeff Sanford

(July 18 – 16:30 ET) – Over already? The mini-boom of the last week came up short against some negative inflation news today as traders busy pushing money into technology decided to back off.

The TSE 300 retreated from its record highs of the last few days as it shed 109.02 points to close at 10,735.50.

The way down was led by industrials which shed 1.80% of its value over the day. Nine of the TSE’s 14 sub-indices finished down, while declining issues outnumbered advancing issues, 572 to 508. The total volume was 120 million shares.

Most of the decline can be pinned on Nortel, which shed $2.65 in value to close at $115.25. JDS Uniphase was also down, it fell $9.50 to $165.05, while Sierra Wireless dropped $8 to $105. Corel shed 30¢ to $5.50 on news that it informed the SEC that its future was “in doubt.” BCE, Bombardier and TransCanada Pipelines were also down.

Was the market getting ahead of itself? A Story in today’s Globe and Mail suggested that many along Bay Street think the market is tapping the upside of a technical peak, one that won’t be breached until after the next Federal Reserve meeting, hence the profit taking.

There was some upward motion in the markets though. ATI Technologies was up on news that it has developed a next-generation graphics card. According to a press release, Doom really rocks on this card. Accordingly, the market boosted ATI stock price by 6.11%.

The CDNX was also down on the day. It lost 27.81 points to finish at 3,359.89.

The Canadian dollar finished the day at US67.74¢.

The story was similar south of the border as well. Technology led the retreat on Wall Street as a broad decline became the order of the day. Intel, United Technologies and Hewlett-Packard all moved lower today as the NASDAQ composite lost 97.50 points to close at 4,177.17.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 64.35 points to finish at 10739.92 and the S&P 500 sank 16.75 points to finish at 1,493.74.