By Jeff Sanford

(August 10 – 18:00 ET) – The TSE 300 closed lower today as profit takers in the tech sector pushed the index down 66.52 points to finish at 10,796.49. Overall, 559 issues declined and 534 advanced. Total volume was 146 million shares.

The utilities sub-index was the biggest advancer today on news that Teleglobe has signed a large contract with 360networks to takeover some capacity in its upcoming South American fibre network. Telegobe stock was up $1.65 to $30.55 while stock in 360networks was up 10¢ to $23.85. The news pushed BCE up as well, as it’s currently in the process of taking over Teleglobe.

In individual stocks, Qubecor Class B shares were down $1.05 to close at $36.45, after the company announced a new bid yesterday in its quest to take over Videotron Group Ltee. Qubecor is offering $45 a share. Videotron closed today up $1.35 to $41.35. The other player in the battle for control of Videotron, Rogers, saw its shares move up 45¢.

Other sub-indices on the upside include real estate, merchandising, gold and conglomerates. Eight of 14 sub-indices were down on the day. The decliners were led by consumer products, industrial products and pipelines, all of which fell over 1%.

The big techs — Nortel, Research in Motion, Celestica, JDS — were responsible for dragging the industrial products index down. Mitel Corp., though, bucked the trend and was up 22% on news that it has produced prototypes of a new chip that will boost performance of fibre optic networks.

Heritage Concepts, which has been a market favourite for the last few weeks, was still the most heavily traded today with 17 million shares trading hands. It was finally hit by some profit taking though and was down 6.85%

Williams Multi-Tech, formerly Williams Resources, was down 3.33% on news of the name change. Evidently a lot of investors don’t like the name, over 6 million Williams shares traded hands today.

The CDNX finished the day flat at 3 341, while the loonie was up slightly at US67.46¢. It closed yesterday at US67.44¢.

In New York, tech issues were also widely sold off as profit takers moved in. The Nasdaq composite ended the day down 93.51 points at 3,759.99. Semiconductor, Internet and networking stocks were all hit.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down as well, though, only slightly. It lost 2.93 points to finish at 10,908.76. Philip Morris and AT&T were big movers on the upside, but those gains were offset by losses in the retail sector. The S&P 500 was also down on the day. It finished at 1,460.25, a loss of 12.62 points.