Another record high close for the TSE 300

The TSE 300 composite index closed at 10,916.10 another record, and a gain of 49.03 points. And while the sell-off south of the border was centered largely in tech stocks, it was Canadian hi-tech companies that provided the upward momentum in the TSE.

Even with the gain, seven of the TSE’s sub-indices were down on the day. Leading the way down were metals, paper, pipelines and conglomerates. Leading the gainers were industrial products and financials.

In individual stocks, Nortel, was of course, up. It closed at $123.10, a gain of $2.35 on the strength of its excellent earnings and revised earnings estimates reported yesterday.

Battery Technologies Inc., was up an incredible 64% over the day on a volume of over 6 million shares traded — second to Nortel. At the request of the TSE, the company issued a news release in which company management said there were no announcements to explain the jump. The company expects equity financing from GroomeCapital.com to go ahead as scheduled.

JDS Uniphase, was another big mover today. It closed up 90¢ on the day. It had been up $7.90 in intradaday trading in front of its earnings announcement after the markets closed. When it finally came, JDS announced earnings of 14¢ a share, while analysts were only expecting 12¢ a share. Look for action in the after hours markets.

In M&A news, an announcement by Montreal-based electronic components maker C-Mac that it is buying Invotronics Manufacturing drove shares up $3.40 to $96.40. Bombardier lost another $1.10 to close at $22.45 after it announced it is buying DaimlerChryusler’s rail unit, Adtranz.

BCE was down 40¢ after it announced earnings of only 45¢ a share. Analyst had been expecting 50¢.

The good news on the TSE continues to pull currency traders into the loonie. Though action was relatively subdued, the Canadian dollar finished the day up US68.26¢. BMO analysts say they expect the dollar to appreciate 75 to 100 basis points a month, for the next six months.

The CDNX finished the day down 27.18 points at 3,333.59.

In the U.S., all the major markets were off. The Dow was down 183.49 to 10,516.40. The NASDAQ composite was down 41.85 to 3,987.72, and the S&P 500 was down 22.05 points to close at 1,452.42.

Chip stocks led the sell-off, with LSI Logic registering a 19% loss. Amazon was also down after an analyst downgraded the e-retailer from ‘buy’ to ‘hold.’