By Jeff Sanford

(September 5 – 18:00 ET) – Although the TSE 300 hit an intraday high today shortly after opening, it couldn’t hold on to the high ground and finished the day down 60.61 points.

Much of the loss can be blamed on Nortel, which dropped with a general tech sell-off in the U.S. today, even though much of the Canadian market showed strength. Advancing issues outnumbered declining issues, 617 to 507 today.

Among the TSE sub-indices, the action was split, with seven sub-indices moving higher. The industrials led the way down with a 1.32% loss. The only other index trending down more than 1% was communications and media, down 1.05%. On the upside were oil and gas, up 2.11%, and metals and minerals, up 1.28%. The conglomerates index also finished the day up 1.06%.

In individual stocks, Nortel was off $3 at $119

Repap Enterprises is still the most actively traded stock, it finished the day up 2.5%.

Geac Computer Corp, was up 23.19% on news that it has retained CIBC World Markets as a financial advisor on several unsolicited bids for all or part of the company.

Bomabardier and Husky both continue to be favorites wit the market, gaining 1.63% and 1.85% respectively.

Among techs, 360Networks was up 8.72%, Descartes Systems was up 5.04% while Research In Motion was up 5.44%.

The CDNX provided a reverse picture of the TSE today. Although decliners outnumbered advancers 286 to 263, the small-cap index finished the day up 27.11 points at 3,612.44.

The Canadian dollar finished weaker Tuesday, at US67.76¢. That’s down from US67.89¢ on Friday.

In the U.S., the Dow finished the day up 21.83 points at 11,260.61 while the Nasdaq composite was down 91.12 points at 4,143.21.

The sell off in the tech sector was sparked in the U.S. by an analyst’s downgrade of Intel and news that federal regulators may block the proposed merger between AOL and Time-Warner