Stocks in Toronto closed lower today. The markets in Canada and America were hit hard by a profit-warning from IBM, as well as the Middle East turmoil, including a threat by Iraq to withhold oil until Israel leaves Palestinian controlled territories on the West Bank. All of this is preceding earnings season which is set to start next week.

The Toronto Stock Exchange 300 composite index closed down 34.51 points, today, at 7,747.60. Nine of the TSE 300’s 14 sub-indices finished lower, led by a 1.36% slide in the industrial products sector, home to the tech stocks.

International Business Machines Corp. issues a warning this morning that spending cutbacks by corporate customers would hurt first-quarter earnings and revenues. Nortel has recently felt the same pain. It closed down 35¢, or 5.8%, at $5.65. That’s in addition to an 11% drop on Friday. Celestica Inc. lost a whopping $3.90, or 7.4 percent, to close at $48.80.

Energy stocks were the strongest sector due to the news from Iraq. Precision Drilling rose $1.67 to, or 3%, to $52.03. Imperial Oil added $1.20, climbing to $47.35.

The S&P/CDNX Composite Index closed down 7.89 at 1168.61. Trading was active on a volume of 31.2 million shares worth 12.7 million dollars, with 180 advances, 260 declines and 538 issues unchanged.

South of the border, blue chips fell after IBM issued the profit warning. But by midday Dow Jones industrial average began to pull off its lows. IBM shares slumped 10%. As a result the Dow fell 22.56 points to 10,249.08. The NASDAQ composite index, however, rose 15.8 points to 1,785.87 after dropping 2%, earlier in the day.