Toronto stocks closed lower Thursday, although they pared earlier losses caused by the report of a plane crashing into a Milan skyscraper. The crash is thought to be an accident.

The Toronto Stock Exchange 300 composite index finished down 50 points at 7,818.10.

Overall, 11 of the TSE 300’s 14 sub-indexes closed lower, led by a 2% slide in the tech-heavy industrial products sector and a 1.7% dip in gold stocks.

Declining issues outpaced advancers 557 to 523 while another 192 were unchanged on light volume of 177 million shares.

Tech stocks struggled after hearing of a grim forecast from Finnish telecom giant Nokia, which cut its sales growth forecast for 2002, fanning fears the telecommunications sector will continue to suffer.

Nortel Networks closed down 27¢ at $6.33. After the closing bell, reported a first-quarter loss that matched previous guidance. It said it expected relatively flat second quarter revenues because of unpredictable customer spending patterns.

Celestica slipped $2.84 to $49.71.

Rogers Communications Inc. fell 62¢ to $20.87 after announcing a first-quarter loss just shy of analysts’ expectations

The S&P/CDNX Composite Index closed up 2.22 points at 1,159.89. Trading was heavy on a volume of 40.4 million shares worth 18.5 million dollars, with 230 advances, 197 declines and 568
issues unchanged.

On Wall Street, blue-chips relinquished a portion of the previous session’s gains Wednesday as investors took profits following another wave of positive earnings news and bullish comments from Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan.

Tech shares were only moderately lower thanks to Intel’s calming earnings report.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 80.54 points to 10,220.78. The Nasdaq composite lost 5.93 points to 1,810.86, and the S&P 500 was down 2.28 points to 1,126.09.

The Canadian dollar slipped US0.02¢ to US63.48¢.