By Jeff Sanford

(March 16 – 17:45 ET) – The TSE 300 opened low today and sank through the morning, touching an intra-day low of 7,683.43. An end of day rally didn’t help much, and the index closed off 70.90 points at 7,752.20.

Downward pressure came from the golds, which were off 3.48%, metals, off 2.46% and utilities, off 2.65%. As well, oil, financial services, consumer products and communications were off over 1%.

On the upside, the techs showed some hope as industrial products sub-index rose 1.75%. Pipelines led the way up though, rising 2.85%, thanks to production cuts set to be announced by OPEC tomorrow.

Overall, eight of the TSE’s 14 sub-indices finished lower

Among individual issues, decliners outpaced advancers 607 to 449. Volume was heavier today than it has been all week, with 185 million shares trading today.

Many traders seemed to think Nortel Networks has bottomed out, as they piled into the stock sending it up 8.11% to close at $26.92. It was the most heavily traded issue of the day at over 19 million shares. But today’s tech action was selective. Name Inc. was up 7.50% to close at 43¢, and ATI was up 5.34% to close at $6.90. Celestica, however, was slaughtered today, plunging 14.66%to close at $53.21. That helped take Onex down 5.33% to $17.75. Research In Motion was also heavily sold today, dropping 21.89% to close at $40.50.

BCE fell 4.07% to $37.50. Telus was also off, closing down 4.82% at $34.55. Alcan slipped 3.86% to $55.60

Today’s heavily sold financials included TD Bank, down 3.28% to $39.81 and Sun Life, down 5.28% at $27.80.

Among the golds, Place Dome was down 3.75% to close at $14.10, and Barrick dropped 6.61% to close at $22.45.

Ultra Petrol, which recently reported record revenue, benefited form the hike in oils, climbing 20.59% to close at $8.20.

The CDNX also sold off today. It dropped 16.74 points to close at 3,036.18 on volume of 40 million shares. Decliners slightly outpaced advancers 238 to 225.

Worries over the state of the global economy has currency traders flocking to the American dollar for safety. The loonie got left behind again today, dropping over another quarter of a cent. The Canadian dollar closed down 0.30% at US63.87¢.

U.S. markets couldn’t sustain any sort of rally today. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 207.87 points, finishing the week below 10,000 at 9,823.41. The Nasdaq composite index dropped 49.80 points to1890.91. The S&P 500 slipped 23.16 points at 1,150.40.