By Jeff Sanford

(August 17 – 18:00 ET) – Was it the breaking of 11,000 barrier, tame news from the CPI, or positive anticipation in front of next week’s FOMC meeting? Whatever it was, the TSE loved it as the 300 finished the day at 11,098.20, another record and a gain of 67.22 points. The index had traded as high as 11,133.41 in intraday trading.

Almost all the sub-indexes were up — just three were down — with the strength coming from oils and technology.

With the price of a barrel of crude now slightly over $31, the oil and pipelines sub-indices were both up over 1%. Nortel gained on the day to pull industrial products up 1.5%. Gold and metals both closed down over 1% on the day.

Overall, 579 issues advanced while 511 declined.

In individual stocks, JDS Uniphase Corp., which gained 45¢ to close at $177.10, and Ballard Power Systems Inc., which moved up $2.05 to $141.55, also helped out the industrial products sub-index.

Research in Motion also did well, rising 5% over the day.

Bombardier was the subject of heavy trading as it announced a fleet sale of its popular Challenger jet to the Australian government yesterday. Nevertheless, it closed the day down 2.05%. Over 12 million shares of Bombardier traded today.

TD Bank also did well. No wonder. Analysts were expecting earnings of 72¢ a share and the bank delivered 80¢. The stock closed up 2.34%.

Stock in Rogers was up 2.09% after the communications company announced it’s buying the Toronto Blue Jays.

Petro-Canada and TransCanada Pipelines were up 1.57% and 4.06% respectively on the rising price of oil.

Seagrams also announced earnings today. Analysts were expecting a loss of (35¢) a share, but the beverage and movie maker announced a loss of just (29¢). The stock lost 25¢ to close at $83.15.

Traders were having second thoughts on Tahera today. It was down almost 18% on the day after rising dramatically yesterday on news that it’s Nunavut diamond exploration project is showing positive signs of diamonds.

Yesterday’s strong gain in the dollar seems to have tired traders who watched the loonie slip slightly today. It closed at US67.67¢, down from US67.34¢ yesterday, even with the positive CPI numbers.

The CDNX closed down 1.58 points at 3,324.44.

News was a bit more negative in the United States. Jobless claims were up more than analysts had expected them. Nevertheless techs rebounded big today. The Nasdaq composite was up 79 points at the close to finish at 3,940. The Dow was up 45 points to 11,053.64, and the S&P 500 was up 16 points to 1496.