By Jeff Sanford

(September 8 – 18:00 ET) – Market-cap fat man, Nortel slimmed down substantially today, as a general tech selloff sparked by a negative Intel report earlier this week continued to knock valuations down across all markets.

A rumour that telecommunications companies won’t be ordering as much networking gear over the short term had particular effect on Cisco, Lucent and Nortel. That sentiment wrung $6.35 from Nortel’s value, a 5.63% loss.

Needless to say, that drop translated into a large decline in the TSE 300. The composite index came in under 11,000 to close at 10,819.80. That’s a drop of 241.83 points.

The losses weren’t confined to industrials, which finished the day off 4.31%, as seven other sub-indices finished the day down.

The biggest drops came in oils and paper , which dropped 1% and 1.13% respectively. The gold sector led on the upside, climbing 1.33% on the day.

Overall on the TSE, 645 issues declined, 457 advanced and 257 remained neutral. Total volume was relatively light with 163 million shares traded.

In individual issues, Research in Motion lost $7.75 to fall to $110.25, JDS Uniphase fell $8.25 to finish at $168.75 and BCE Emergis fell $2.50 to finish at $86.30. 360Networks was down $1.45 to $32.10.

Repap was again the most heavily traded issue, with 13 million shares trading. It was up to 21¢ today.

CIBC rebounded from its loss yesterday to finish up 1.44% , on its positive earnings news.

A ratings downgrade on Sun Life by PaineWebber knocked Sun Life stock down 5.52% today.

The CDNX closed up 32.63 points at 3,647. The most active stock was Genoil with over 4 million shares trading.

The loonie finished slightly lower today at US67.69¢ after closing at US67.70¢ yesterday.

In the U.S., the story was similar to the TSE’s troubles. The Nasdaq composite tripped and ended the day back below 4,000. Selloffs in chip, hardware, internet and networking shares sent Nasdaq down 119.90 points to 3,978.45.

The Dow Jones industrial average was also off on the day. It ended down 39.22 points at 11,220.65. The S&P 500 was down 8.01 points at 1494.50.