Stock markets were mixed at the close on Thursday following a volatile trading session. The S&P/TSX index closed down 53.08 points, at 6,863.33, despite a rally in tech stocks.

The Toronto index was dragged down the Canadian companies that are being removed from the S&P 500 index — Alcan, Inco, Placer Dome, Barrick Gold and Nortel Networks.

Most of the damage was done Wednesday but Alcan was down another 62¢ to $51.43 Thursday, while Inco lost 42¢ to $30.70.

Nortel Networks shrugged off being dumped to rise 15¢ to $2.19. That helped the information group rise an impressive 5.9% after enduring three straight days of losses.

Celestica Inc. gained $4.65 to $29.50.

Biovail closed up $1.41 at $34.51, reversing an earlier drop that saw it down as much as $2.31. The pharmaceutical company said it had settled its legal fight with Andrx. (allowing the U.S. generic drugmaker to manufacture and market its Taztia XT hypertension product free of patent infringement claims.

The Toronto market was dragged down by the energy sector, off 2.6%. EnCana lost $1.60 to $44.40 and Talisman Energy was down $1.19 to $65.21.

The gold sub-index was the big loser, as the group shed more than 3%. Placer Dome was down 48¢ to $16.60.

In business news, Telus Corp. said it is cutting 6,000 jobs by the end of next year — including 5,000 union jobs and 1,000 management positions. he stock was up $1.09 at $11.40.

The S&P TSX venture composite index slipped 15.26 points to close at 1,131.49.

On Wall Street, blue-chips ended flat Thursday, and tech stocks finished higher, as the major averages staged a big comeback from a selloff earlier in the session.

The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 11.97 points to 8,801.53. The Nasdaq added 28.42 points to 1,374.43 and the S&P 500 rose 6.90 points, to 927.7.

The Dow had been down more than 200 points around midday, and the Nasdaq went as low as 1323.

The latest big-name company to find itself in accounting hot water was Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., which confirmed on Thursday its sales practices were being investigated by U.S. regulators.

The Canadian dollar dipped 0.21 of a cent at 65.60 cents US as the American greenback was mixed against major currencies. The TSX Venture Exchange lost 5.97 points to 1,141.78.