The consumer discretionary sector was down 1.7% as CanWest Globalshares hit a new six-year low of $8 and closed at $8.01, down 49 cents. Rogers Communications lost 70¢ to $15.40.

Telecoms were down 1.3% as Telus gave up 48¢ to $12.25 and Rogers Wireless lost $1.18 to $13.82.

GT Group Telecom melted down five¢ to a new low of 12¢, a day after saying it was in talks with its lenders as it expects revenue to fall short of the terms of its debt covenants.

The information technology sector fell 1.4%. Celestica lost $1.30 to $35.70, and Zarlink Semiconductor gave up 35 cents to $7.45. Nortel was up a penny at $2.61. ATI Technologies gained 34¢ to $11.18.

The TSX gold sector rose a strong 5% as the spot price of gold hit US$322.7 US, up US$3.10.

Winners included Goldcorp, up $1.14 to $16.75, and Barrick, up $1.02 to $21.12.

Automaker stocks were a drag on the markets after Morgan Stanley downgraded the vehicle industry. Parts maker Magna International shed $3.10 to $101.

The economic news in Canada was uniformly good as Statistics Canada said the best export performance in more than a year pushed the merchandise trade surplus up 11% in April over March. And domestic retail sales were up by 1% in April.

Royal Bank was down 40¢ to $54.75 despite announcing it will buy back and cancel up to 20 million shares.

Toronto volume was 159.42 million shares as declines outnumbered advances 559 to 526 with 199 unchanged.

The TSX Venture Exchange was up 6.77 at 1,194.23.

In New York, word of more violence in the Middle East weighed on stocks. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 129.80 points at 9,431.77, its second triple-digit decline in two days.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq was down 32.09 at 1,464.74. The S&P 500 index lost 13.71 points to 1,006.28

The U.S. current account deficit climbed to a record $112.5 billion in the first quarter of this year. This overshadowed a stronger than expected rise in the U.S. Conference Board’s index of leading indicators.

Thursday’s strong reports boosted the Canadian dollar. The loonie closed up 0.55¢ at US65.45¢.