By Jeff Sanford

(February 20 – 18:30 ET) – Toronto stocks closed lower as investors continued to flee tech stocks. The TSE 300 plunged 222.99 points to close at 8,236.70.

The most active issue today was Nortel Networks. It slid another 11.29% to close at $29 on heavy volume of 20 million shares, dragging the Toronto composite index down with it.

Also thanks to Nortel, the industrial products sub-index fell 6.62%. Overall nine of fourteen sub-indices finished lower. Utilities slipped 2.07%, while the paper, oil, metals, gold and financial services were all down over 1%. On the upside were consumer products, merchandising, pipelines and real estate sectors.

Among individual issues, the market trend was similarly negative — 682 issues declined while 423 advanced. Volume was 150 million shares.

Lorus Therapeutics gave up some of yesterday¹s gains, sliding 10.81% to close at $2.31.

NAME Inc. slid some 2.50% today in the wake of the announcement that itemus Inc. has launched a takeover bid for the company. itemus slipped 7.14% to close at 50¢.

Other techs taking a beating included Celestica, which was off 3.58% to close at $86.20, C-Mac, which dropped 7.90% to close at $44.30 and JDS Uniphase, which was off 7.46% to close at $54.60. Research In Motion dropped 9.69% to $72.25.

Com Dev slipped a drastic 21.77% today, to close at $9.70, even though it announced new contract commitments yesterday.

There wasn’t much on the upside. TrizecHahn announced today that it expects revenue from its real estate holdings to grow by 55¢ a share by the end of 2003. That sent stock in the company up 3.45% to close at $25.50.

All of the major banks ended the day lower with Bank of Nova Scotia and BMO leading the way with losses of 4% and 2% respectively.

The CDNX today was off 42.75 points to close at 3,123.69. That was on volume of 42 million shares. Declining issues outpaced advancing issues 289 to 195.

While the loonie corrected slightly today, it still stayed below the 65¢ mark, closing at US64.94¢.

New York markets also experienced a selloff in techs. The Nasdaq composite plunged 101.72 points to close down 4.19% at 2,323.66. The Dow Jones industrial average was off 67.59 points to close 10,732.23, and the S&P 500 was down 22.65 to close at 1,278.88.