By Jeff Sanford

(January 31 – 18:30 ET) – Toronto stocks see-sawed again today. The TSE 300 rose throughout the morning and coasted in advance of the Federal Reserve Board’s rate decision. But when news of the 50 basis point cut hit the wires, investors began selling. The TSE 300 dipped 26.46 points to close at 9,321.90

Today’s session was marred by a problem with the TSE trading engine and trading was stopped for about 20 minutes around 3:30. The exchange re-opened shortly before close. The TSE says it is investigating the reason for the shutdown.

Eight of the TSE 300 sub-indices finished higher, although nothing on the upside gained more 1%, except real estate. Pipelines led on the downside with a 1.5% drop. Industrials dipped 0.2%.

Among individual issues though, the trend was up, with advancing issues slightly outpacing declining ones, 584 to 514. Volume was 177 million shares.

Profit-takers sold into the big tech names. Nortel was off 0.54% to $58.67, JDS Uniphase was off 7.42% to $84.90, Celestica was down 6.05% to $101 and RIM was off 5.88% to $100.

Look for Celestica to turn around tomorrow after announcing a strong earnings report after the bell.

The banks were split today. While Royal, TD and BMO closed lower, CIBC and National Bank gained on the day.

Investors Group continued to climb. It rose 2.40% to $55.74, while Mackenzie was off 0.38% to $29.05.

The CDNX finished up 12.52% at 3.250.06. That was on volume of 42 million shares. Overall, 279 issues advanced while 268 declined.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up just 21.13 points to close at 10,902.33 giving evidence that the Fed’s rate cut was already priced into the market.

The Nasdaq composite index fell 54.56 points to 2,783.79, while the S&P 500 dipped 5.52 points to 1,368.21