By Gavin Adamson
(April 19 – 17:00 ET) – Investors unloaded a broad base of stocks on earnings worries, sending markets across North America downward.
IBM may have reported a better-than-expected first quarter yesterday after the markets closed, but it also reported that sales were down 5%, pushing investors to the sell. IBM, Intel, Catepillar and Citigroup were down. The Dow Jones industrial average closed off 92.46 points to 674.96.
The news was not good for the NASDAQ either, which dropped 87.22 points to 3,706.35. Lucent, Qualcomm and United Technologies gained, but many others among the computer software, hardware, chips, and Internet sectors slipped.
The Toronto Stock Exchange fared a bit better, but the TSE 300 composite index dropped 35.80 points to 9,034.90. Nortel sagged by C$4 to $155.50, and investors knocked $4.10 from BCE, which closed at $156.40. JDS Uniphase lost another $2.50 to $137, Certicom lost $4 to $74, while Research in Motion edged up by $2 to $61.85. Stability in the oil and gas and mining stocks helped, as did small rallies in the financial services sector, including the Royal Bank of Canada, and the Bank of Montreal.
On the Canadian Venture Exchange it was much the same story, with techs dragging down an otherwise decent day for oil & gas and mining issues. The index lost 19.22 points to 3,631.07, led down by Unique Broadband System, which retreated by 12% to C$5.45.