Shares in communications giant BCE Inc. soared almost 20% Wednesday as the company replaced its chairman and CEO while stopping the flow of long-term support for subsidiary Teleglobe.

But the sessions winners were definitely in the minority as the Toronto Stock Exchange 300 index slipped 4.43 points to 7,713.41.

BCE rose $4.55 to $27.55 on huge volume of just under 28 million shares.

While BCE pulled the Toronto market’s utilities group up 10.1% , 11 of the 14 TSE sub-indexes closed lower.

Base-metal stocks fell 2.8%. Noranda reported a bare profit of $1 million in the first quarter, and its shares dropped 81¢ to $18.74. Alcan was down $1.62 at $57.99, Inco dropped $1.72 to $31.05 and Falconbridge declined 70¢ to $19.30.

Financial-service stocks slipped 0.7%. Bank of Montreal was down 78¢ to $36.78 and Scotiabank was off 54¢ at $53.76.

The tech-heavy industrial products sector was down 0.8%. Ballard Power gave up $2.32 to $43.01, Research In Motion fell $1.49 to $29.31 and Open Text declined $1.70 to $31.55. CAE gained 55¢ to $11.85.

Toronto volume was 206.4 million shares worth $3.19 billion. Declines outpaced advances 585 to 511, with 201 issues unchanged.

The S&P/CDNX Composite Index closed up 1.49 points at 1,165.57. Trading was heavy on a volume of 37.7 million shares worth 18.3 million dollars, with 194 advances, 205 declines and 596 issues unchanged.

In New York, the major averages endured a choppy session Wednesday and closed uniformly lower as investors weighed strong quarterly results at Amazon.com, and other companies against a lackluster durable goods report and data showing declining home sales.

The Dow Jones industrial average finished with a loss of 58.81 points to 10,030.43. The Nasdaq composite index fell 16.95 points to 1,713.34, and the S&P 500 dropped 7.82 points to 1,093.14.

The U.S. Census Bureau said durable goods orders fell 0.6% in March, down sharply from a 2.7% rise in February. And the U.S. Commerce Department said new home sales fell 3.1% in March to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 878,000, relatively in line with the consensus estimate.

The Canadian dollar gained US0.25¢ to US63.79¢.