By Jeff Sanford

(December 20 – 18:00 ET) – Worries about profits and turbulence in the tech sector combined with tax-loss selling to batter markets today.

A negative Merrill Lynch report on tech blue chips, Cisco, IBM and Hewlett-Packard, cast a negative shadow, which translated into big losses on all major indexes.

The TSE 300 dropped 243.84 points to close at 8,642.53, a drop of 2.74%.

Nearly every sub-index closed lower. The bright spot was the 2.81% advance in golds.

Industrials led on the downside with a 6.16% drop. Losing more than 2% were communications and metals and minerals.

Among individual issues, the trend was decidedly down. While only 375 issues advanced on the day, over 783 declined. Volume was heavy at 248 million shares.

Nortel was heavily traded at 22.3 million shares, and heavily sold. It plunged 8.08% to close down $4.20 at $47.80.

Celestica was fell 8.37% to $73.35. JDS Uniphase was plummeted10.19% to $72.75.

BCE shed 3.12% to $41.90. Also down big was Gulf Canada, off 6.94% at $6.70.

Most of the financials were slipped today. Manulife shed 2.58% to close at $43.45. One exception was Bank of Nova Scotia. It climbed 2.19% to $42.05.

The CDNX was dropped 69.47 points today to close at 2,704.70. The loss was on heavy volume of 58 million shares. Overall, 483 issues declined while 256 advanced.

The Canadian dollar opened lower this morning, but climbed throughout the day to close unchanged at US65.72¢.

In the New York, the story was similar. Tech worries and widespread pessimism meant sellers were the majority.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 256.44 points to close at 11,0318.93, and 2.5% drop. The Nasdaq composite tumbled even more dramatically from the 52-week low set yesterday. The tech-heavy index plunged 178.93 points to 2,332.78, its lowest level since March 1999 and a 7% drop.

The S&P 500 was slid 40.86 points to 1,264.74, a drop of 3%.