Stock markets fell Thursday after comments from U.S. President George Bush and Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan failed to calm jittery investors.

Bush told the U.N. General Assembly that military action against Iraq would be unavoidable unless the United Nations took a hard line forcing Baghdad to disarm.

With with the possibility of a war between the United States and Iraq lingering over equity markets, The S&P/TSX composite index tumbled 101.01 points to 6,517.29.

Overall, 10 of the 13 TSX industry groups fell, led by a 5.10% drop in the information technology index. Healthcare fell 2.69%.

The gold sector climbed 4.07% as bullion prices rose by US$2.30 an ounce to US$320.40.

Celestica led the information technology group lower, falling $2.49 to $35.39. Nortel dropped 10¢ to $1.66.

Bombardier fell 14 cents to $5.55.

Inco dropped 65¢ to $27.70, while Sleeman Ale gained 53¢ to $11.44.

TSX declines beat advances 594 to 452 with 180 issues unchanged in trading of 192.4 million shares valued at $2.6 billion.


The rise in gold benefited Canada’s junior exchange. The TSX Venture Exchange edged up 5.48 to 1,006.94.

In, New York, the Dow Jones industrial average slid 201.76 points to end the day at 8,379.41. The Nasdaq composite index fell 35.81 points to 1,279.64. The S&P 500 was off 22.55 points to 886.90.

The talk of war hurt the Canadian dollar, which slipped 0.22¢ to US63.04¢.