By Jeff Sanford

(January 26 – 18:00 ET) – Toronto stocks made up for earlier losses this afternoon, but still couldn’t manage to end the session in positive territory.

The TSE 300 plunged 100 points at the open, and clawed its way up during the day before falling back slightly at the close. The composite index closed down 25.16 points at 9,158.19.

The market direction was slightly down with seven of the TSE 300’s 14 sub-indices closing lower.

Pipelines led with an advance of 1.89% and 1.35% respectively. Metals led on the downside, with a decline of 1.58%.

Among individual issues, advancers outpaced decliners 527 to 496. Volume was restrained with only 145 million shares trading.

Royal Bank announced today that it is buying U.S. bank Centura for $3.5 billion. It’s the biggest transborder deal yet by a Canadian bank. While stock in Centura shot up, investors seemed to be nervous about the deal and lopped 4.92% off Royal’s stock price. It closed at $49.25.

Though Nortel Networks dropped 1.59% to $55.75, other techs did well. Telesys gained 7.69% to $7, Celestica added 3.20% to $103.05, JDS jumped 5.78% to $91.50, and Geac soared 33.96% to $3.55. C-Mac closed slipped 3.06% to $76.10.

Investors Group was off 5.38% today, while its parent Power Financial Corp was off 4.39% at $31.60. Power is said to be putting the finishing touches on a takeover bid for Mackenzie Financial. Mackenzie shares slipped 25¢ to $27.50.

The CDNX finished up 17 points today to close at 3,217. Advancing issues were slightly ahead of declining issues, 285 to 256.

The loonie closed flat today. It was off just 0.03% to US66.36¢.

In the U.S. the Dow Jones industrial average was off 69.54 points at 10,659.98. The Nasdaq composite index gained 27.02, finishing on an upbeat note after an earlier selloff. It closed at 2,781.30. The S&P 500 was slipped 2.56 points to 1,354.95.