By Jeff Sanford

(September 18 17:45 ET) – Earnings concerns are sending nervous tremors through the Toronto Stock Exchange today, which opened lower this morning and trended down over the course of the day. That concern sent the TSE 300 down 281.58 points today to close at 10,782.00, a 2.55% loss.

First Call has reported that 110 companies have reported lower than expected earnings so far this quarter. That’s up from the 69 last quarter. Add to that concerns that the price of oil could trigger inflation and perhaps another interest rate increase and investors are jittery.

All three major markets, the TSE, Nasdaq and NYSE are now trading below important psychological market thresholds — 11,000 for the TSE and NYSE and 4,000 for NASDAQ.

Only two of the TSE’s subindices finished higher today. The metal and oil sectors both finished up, but by a paltry 0.17%. On the downside, the industrial products sector lost 4.64% of its value, while consumer products was down 2.34% and communications was down 1.39%. Overall, 677 issues declined while 426 advanced on volume of 144 million shares.

A perfect example of the mood of investors is Cinram, which announced late Friday that its earnings would fall below expectations. When traders got work this morning they punished the CD-maker by shaving 22.73% from its value by the time final bell rang.

Nortel, of course, also takes some of the blame. It was down $6 to $101.10 today, dragging the rest of the TSE 300 with it. Techs got hit particularly hard today. Research In Motion was down a hefty 4.43% on the day, while Mitel dropped 4.48%.

Videotron and Rogers stock were the second and third most heavily traded issues on the TSE this afternoon. They were down 0.11% and 3.57% respectively.

BCE was also down 1%.

A deal by Corus to acquire children’s TV programmer Nelvana for $540 million sent stock in Nelvana up by 11.99%.

The CDNX was also down today. It closed at 3,647.02, a loss of 43.05 points on 46.3 million dollars. That was on volume of 46.3 million shares.

Following its brief rally Friday, the loonie sank over the course of the day. It closed at US67.21¢, compared to US 67.42¢ on Friday.

In U.S. markets, the story was much the same. Earnings calls and speculation about the “density” of the economy’s landing has led to broad selloffs on the major markets.

The Dow was down 118.48 points at 10,808.52, the S&P 500 was down 21.30 at 14,44.51, and the Nasdaq was down 108.712 at 3,726.52.