By Jeff Sanford

(February 15 – 18:00 ET) – After a strong session, the TSE 300 erased nearly all of its gains in the last hour and a half before recovering slightly to end the day up 55.79 points, to 8967.37. The composite index had traded as high as 9,039.03 during the day.

The strength was in techs and metals, many of which benefited from strong earnings announcements today. Those two sectors were up 2.41% and 4.52% respectively. Overall, six sub-indices finished gained while seven declined. Gold, pipelines and oil led on the downside.

Market breadth was just about neutral today, with 542 issues advancing and 533 declining. Volume was relatively heavy at 173 million shares.

Nortel Networks finished the day with a 2.53% advance to close at $46.15. It was the second most heavily traded issue, though, behind Denison Mine, a penny stock which traded 15 million shares today, presumably on momentum.

JDS Uniphase also benefited from tech interest. It gained 9.54% on the day to $71.75.

Gulf Canada rocketed ahead 10.64% today to close at $9.05, on volume of 7.8 million shares.

Although Sun Life reported a 37% fourth quarter increase in net income, the company said meeting analysts expectations for 2001 would be a challenge. Sun Life dropped 7.05% to $32.30 on the news.

Inco on the other hand reported that fourth quarter earnings in dropped slightly (due to higher energy prices). It finished the day up 8.86% at $28.25.

Alcan announced a dividend of 15¢ today, giving its stock price a boost of 5.45% to close it at a straight $60.

Falconbridge was also ahead on the day, rising 3.31% to close at $18.70.

Profit takers scooped some off the top of recent advances in CP, dropping shares in the company a slight 1.42% to $57.67. CP subsidiary, PanCanadian Pacific, was off 1.49% at $46.30.

National Bank was up 3.85% to close at $31.

The CDNX finished the day up 7.09 points at 3221.08. That was on heavy volume of 57 million shares. Advancers slightly outdistanced decliners 273 to 250.

The dollar dropped 0.12% today to close at a dismal US65.38¢.

Like Toronto, U.S. markets gave up some of their earlier gains. After a bullish morning the Dow Jones industrial average closed at 10,891.02, up 95.61 points. The Nasdaq composite index gained 61.51 points to 2,552.91, and the S&P 500 closed at 1,326.47, an advance of 10.55 points.