By Jeff Sanford

(December 1 – 17:30 ET) – Bargain hunters were out in force today, as investors looking for deals picked through the wreckage of the recent tech sell-offs. Discount shopping sent the Toronto Stock Exchange 300 composite index up a strong 121.28 points, today. It closed at 8941.20, a gain of 1.38%.

The deals were in the tech stocks. That’s where the money went looking for deals. As a result, the industrial products sector finished up 2.15%, today, as nearly anything tech gained at least a few points. Research In Motion was up 15.5% at $114.00, JDS Uniphase finished up 8.77% at $88.65 and Celestica gained 12.75% to finish at $10.30. 360Networks was up 8.18% at $17.20 on news that it has completed its country wide broadband network. Nortel was trading just under $61 in intra-day action but fell back to finish the day at $58.25.

Other sub-indices doing well today were metals and minerals and consumer products, up 3.405 and 2.59% respectively. QLT, with a 9.80% advance to $6.65, helped out the consumer products index. The metals and minerals index was helped up by a 3.87% advance in the price of Inco. It closed at $22.80.

Only three sub-indices finished the day lower–utilities, real-estate and pipelines–and none of them were off more than 1%.

Overall, among individual issues, 596 issues advanced while 482 declined. Volume was 137 million shares.

The CDNX finished the day up 46.85 points at 2938.33. Total volume was 34 million shares with 355 advancing and 243 declining.

The dollar took a dive today, dropping 0.84% toUS 64.70¢.

Bargain hunters were also out in the U.S., though, they couldn’t sustain the upward drive. Selling pressure knocked the Nasdaq Composite Index off intra-day highs. It ended the day up 47.36 points at 2645.29.

The Dow Jones Industrials Average was not even that lucky. A big 10% drop in the price of Intel, helped to bring the index down 40.95 points to 10373.54. The S&P split the difference and remained relatively unchanged, off 0.22 of a point at 1315.17.