By James Langton

(March 20 – 17:00 ET) – Markets were sleepy today, opening high and slowly giving up their gains throughout the day. The TSE 300 was up well over 100 points intraday, before closing up just 39.5 points to 9,568. As the TSE gave up its gains through the afternoon the gap between up and down volume narrowed to 9:8 in favour of buyers. The split between advancers and decliners was almost even.

Apart from the losses in consumer products, about 3.2% worth, most of the TSE’s 14 groups closed in positive territory today albeit off earlier highs. Nevertheless the miners were strong, as were the utilities, pipelines and paper stocks.

BCE managed to finish the day up 3% on more than 3 million shares. Talk of telecom mergers, optimism surrounding the firm, and news of its involvement with the development of very high speed Internet equipment (VDSL) has the stock up. Apart from BCE, tech stocks such as Wi-Lan, Nortel and MDSI Mobile Data were also up. Fairfax Financial, E-L Financial, TD Bank and Manulife Fiinancial were all up in the financials group. Cable company Shaw Communications closed up, as did Potash Corp.

The energy stocks were also moving actively after EdperBrascan Corp. announced that it is selling its 39% stake in Canadian Hunter, while Duke Energy is picking up 20% of Canadian 88 Energy. Today crude oil fell about 5% as traders anticipate production boosts from OPEC.

The CDNX finished the day up 14.75 points to 4,472 on volume of 94.3 million shares. Volume was relatively light on the CDNX too and each of its subindicies was mildly down. Price Manufacturing Inc. was the hottest trade,
up 33% to 12¢ on 3.95 million shares.

Light volume was the order of the day on both sides of the border today as traders await tomorrow’s expected 25 basis point rate hike. While the rate move is being banked, traders are a little worried about the content of any policy statement from the U.S. Federal Reserve Board. If that kept volume light, yet another pullback in U.S. tech stocks helped kill the tech-led rally that Toronto opened with this morning.

The Nasdaq closed down 188 points today to 4,610. Techs seemed to be simply hit by profit-takers and some skepticism about the sector on the heels of negative comments in Barron’s on Internet stocks and a huge momentum hit in MicroStrategy which was forced to restate its earnings.

Software was hard hit on the TSE today as a result. Certicom dropped 14%, 724 Solutions lost more than 8% and Open Text lost about 9.5%. Other techs such as JDS Uniphase, Sierra Wireless and Descartes Systems all lost sharply. Other techs suchs as Ballard Power and Angiotech Pharmaceuticals also sold off.

With the techs continuing their volatile gyrations, the cyclicals are picking up some of the slack. The Dow finished the day up 85 points, off its intraday highs, but nevertheless closed up at 10,680. The S&P finished off eight points at 1,458.