By Jeff Sanford
(July 21 – 17:30 ET) – Most major North American markets were down today, reversing the gains following Alan Greenspan’s testimony before the U.S. senate banking committee earlier this week. The TSE, on the other hand, bucked the trend. It finished the day up another 101.30 points.
Lucent Technoligies was one of the chief market propellants today. Nortel’s main rival announced a Q3 loss and cut its revenue and growth outlook Thursday. As its stock plummeted 16%, investors ran to the other end of the teeter-totter and pushed Nortel up $3.75 Friday. Nortel closed at $118.95.
Overall, the market trended down with 567 issues declining and only 486 advancing. Volume was extremely light at only 108 million shares traded.
The subindices were split with seven up and seven down. Leading the upside was communications and industrial products while the oil and gold sectors led the downside.
In individual stocks, Celestica was down $4.35 after big gains this week on positive earnings news. RIM was also down. It shed $3.75 to close at an even $90. Call-Net was up 27%. JDS was also up. It closed at $197.95, a gain of $9.65.
There was also some action outside the tech sector. Old economy stalwart, Abitibi-Consolidated, announced that it is closing two of its mills. The news sent its stock up 4% in afternoon trading. Canadian National saw a $1.65 knocked off its share price in advance of its earnings call Monday.
Trading was active on the CDNX. Volume was 34.4 million shares worth 31.8 million dollars, with 284 advances, 261 declines and 441 issues unchanged. The index closed up 5.12 at 3383.20
In the U.S., earnings worries over tech stocks such as Agilent, Lexmark and Ericsson sent the NASDAQ down 90.11 points.
The Dow dropped 110.31 points, or 1.0 percent, to 10,733.56. It was led by a 6 5/8 loss in the price of Hewlett Packard stock.