By Gavin Adamson

(March 30 – 17:00 ET) – Something seems to have sunk in. North American investors are bailing out of tech stocks, say analysts, realizing their valuations will never be justified by earnings.

The Nasdaq dropped 276.21 to 4,368 by 16:00 ET, although in after-hours trading the index buoyed somewhat. The tech sell-off also dragged down the Dow by 79.74 to 10,938.98. The move conservative S&P was down 1.4%.

Big names like Cisco, Intel and Qualcomm slipped by about 10% each. On the upside in the U.S. were bond sales, and some of the more traditional blue chips, like banks and tobacco companies.

It was the same story in Canada. The TSE 300 dropped 308.99 to 9393.17. It was led down by tech heavy weights BCE and Nortel Networks, which were traded down heavily. BCE dropped C$13.05 to $178.95, and Nortel stepped down by $15.95 to $179. Others, like JDU Uniphase and Research In Motion weren’t so heavily traded, but they deflated as well. JDS was down $4 to $170, and RIM slipped by $19.85 to $143.05.

On the upside were the banks. The Royal Bank gained C$2.90 to $70.40. TD added 40 cents to $39.90, and BMO was also up 80 cents to 50.80.

The CDNX followed the general trend. Mini-tech stocks like Nuvo Network Management slipped by 14% to C$1.78. Unique Broadband dropped 19% to $5.85. The index was down 134.46 to 4,173.16.