Toronto stocks closed lower Tuesday on a gloomy outlook from CN and weaker than expected U.S. consumer confidence at start of the holiday shopping season. The S&P/TSX index closed down 100.39 points to 6,477.77.

Canadian National Railway closed $2.26 lower at $63.54 after saying it is cutting 1,146 jobs and taking a $252-million charge against fourth-quarter earnings. The TSX industrials sector fell 1.5%.

A 2% drop in the financial sector put additional pressure on the Toronto market.

Bank of Montreal declined 87¢ to $39.75 after reporting a quarterly profit of $398 million, up from $4 million a year earlier but below analyst expectations. Full-year earnings dipped $54 million to $1.417 billion.

TD, which reports earnings Wednesday, fell 66¢ to $32.15. CIBC, also reporting Wednesday, lost $1.17 to $45.57 while Royal Bank was off $1 to $57.

The information technology group was the biggest sectoral decliner, falling 4%. Nortel Networks lost 16¢ to $2.75. Descartes Systems dropped 50¢to $4.42 and Celestica was down $2.61 at $26.51.

The energy sector also sagged, with EnCana down $1.71 to $42.01 and Suncor Energy off 68 cents to $22.88.

TSX volume was 262.3 million shares worth $2.58 billion. Declines beat advances 630 to 478 with 204 unchanged.

The junior TSX Venture Exchange was down 2.11 points at 942.59.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average retreated 172.98 points to 8,676.42. The Nasdaq backed off 37.50 to 1,444.40 and the S&P 500 was down 19.60 at 913.28.

Investors looking for signs of strong retail sales this holiday period and into 2003 were disappointed that consumer confidence in November rose to 84.1 from 79.6 in October – the market had expected a reading of 85.

Also Tuesday, the U.S. Commerce Department reported that the American economy grew at an annual rate of four per cent in the third quarter, above expectations and much higher than the 3.1% growth rate estimated a month ago.

The Canadian dollar was down 0.08 cent at US63.46 cents.