By Jeff Sanford
(July 19 – 16:30 ET) – Markets continued their down trend today as profit taking by traders nervous about the “validity” of recent gains took their money and ran.
The TSE 300 fell 93.37 points to finish at 10,637.10 on relatively light volume of 120 million shares traded. Only 462 issues advanced, while 636 dropped in value.
Industrials experienced the biggest drop as the tech stocks led the sell-off. The industrial sub-index fell 1.57%. All of the other sub-indices were down except communications, conglomerates and consumer products.
Nortel lost another $1.90 to close at $113.35. Research in Motion, ATI and JDS were also down. Celestica was down even though it announced today that it beat second-quarter earnings expectations by about 30%. Janna Systems was up on news that it posted a 171% increase in revenue for the second quarter over the same period last year.
The CDNX was also down on the day, it finished at 3,355.66, a loss of 4.23 points.
The Canadian loonie finished the day at US67.73¢.
In the U.S, the retreat in tech shares turned into a rout as the NASDAQ literally took a nosedive. The tech-heavy NASDAQ composite lost 121.54 points to finish the day at 4,055.63.
The Dow Jones industrial average was also off on the day. It finished down 43.84 points at 10,696.08, largely on the dismal performance on Microsoft which shed 6.8% of its market cap. The S&P 500 stood at 1,481.96 at close, down 11.78 points.
Not even strong earnings announcements had an impact on investor sentiment. Both Intel and Microsoft dropped, even after earnings beat expectations.
Federal Reserve Board chief Alan Greenspan appears before the Senate Banking Committee Thursday, look for the market to take direction from the tone of his comments.