By Jeff Sanford

(September 26 – 17:45 ET) – The Toronto Stock Exchange continued to shed the top end of its market cap today. The TSE 300 finished the day down 152.39 points, at 10,478.59 as investors seem to be taking a closer look at stock valuations in light of a slowing economy and lower earnings.

The TSE is now off several hundred points from its 52-week, and all time high of 11,401.97.

Overall the pressure was downward, nine of 14 sectors finished lower. It was a similar case from the perspective of single issues: 616 finished the day while only 464 finished higher. Volume was slightly under 139 million shares.

Tech issues are high on the list of stocks to be revalued. Not surprisingly, Nortel led the way down today. It finished the day off $4.10 to close at $95.50. That’s also off substantially from its 52 week high of $124.50. The industrial products sub-index was down 2.81% overall. Research in Motion bucked the downward trend in techs to gain 8.17% on the day.

Also down today were consumer products, 2.30% and conglomerates down 1.86%.

Finishing on the upside was oil and gas, up 1.86% on an increase in the price of oil. The pipelines sector was also up, 1.34%.

Smart investors would have rotated out of the techs and into United Dominion Industries Ltd., today. The building products company announced it is in talks with several parties about a potential merger. After closing at $27 yesterday, it opened this morning at $30 and then climbed to $35.00 at the close, a tidy gain of 29.63%.

As Bombardier continues to sign contracts — the latest is an agreement to produce turboprops for the Mexican Navy — its stock price continues to climb. It was the most heavily traded issue on the TSE today, gaining 35¢ to close at $24.50.

Husky Energy is another name that just seems to keep gaining. That increase in the price of oil helped to push it up another 30¢ to close at $14.25. Petro-Canada also benefited, closing up 3.17%.

Evidently the 14:00 ET conference call between Laidlaw management and holders of the beleaguered companies debt didn’t go as well as speculators had anticipated. Following gains in the stock all week, some 2 million shares traded hands and the stock closed down 9.8% at 46¢.

The CDNX also finished the day substantially lower. It was down 48.30 points at 3,534.93 on volume of 43.9 million shares. Overall 366 issues declined and 208 advanced.

The loonie finished the day slightly higher today, closing at US67.29¢, up from US67.25¢ yesterday.

In the U.S., all major markets were down. The Dow closed at 10,631.32, down 176.83 points, while the Nasdaq composite dropped 52.12 points 3,689.10. The S&P 500 closed down 11.82 points at 1,427.21.