By Jeff Sanford

(March 15 – 18:00 ET) – The TSE 300 bounced back and forth between the red and the black today before a late day spike pushed it back into positive territory. The composite index gained a slight 16.22 points to close at 7,823.10.

Market breadth among the sub-indices was negative. Only six of the 14 sub-indices advanced.

Gold led the downside with a 2.72% drop. Utilities, oil and conglomerates were all down more than 1%.

The advancers were led by financial services. with a 1.81% increase. Industrials, with a gain of 1.18%, was the only other sector up over 1%.

Among individual issues, market breadth was just slightly negative, with 531 advancers and 561 decliners. Market volume was light, with only 129 million shares trading.

Nortel Networks was the most active issue today. It gained 3.88% to close at $24.90.

Bombardier was also heavily traded. It shed 1.75% to $20.20.

Rogers came under some heavy selling pressure today and fell 4.92% to $22.80.

Financial stocks have been all over the map this week. Today they advanced after posting losses yesterday. TD close gained 2.64% to $41.16, Manulife advanced 2.62% to $41.20, Sun Life rose 2.09% to $29.35, Bank of Nova Scotia climbed 3.46% to $42.20, CIBC edged up1.52% to $49.50 and Royal advanced 1.54% to $48.10.

A good earnings report this week helped Geac advance 5% today. It closed at $3.15.

Itemus ended the day up 3.92% at 53¢, while Name finished the day up 2.56% at 40¢. Itemus announced March 9 its intention to buy up all outstanding stock of Name.

Turbo Genset Inc., a maker of power generation systems, was added to the TSE 300 today after receiving its listing on the TSE just six months ago. Usually companies must list for 12 months before they can be added to the index. The stock ended the day off 4.55% at $8.40. It has traded between $5 and $15 so far.

Trading was quiet on the CDNX where only 30 million shares changed hands. It ended the day up though, at 3,052.92, a gain of 25.19 points. Market breadth was just about neutral with 225 advancers and 238 issues decliners.

The loonie slipped again today. It closed at US64.06¢, a decline of 0.23%.

In New York, stocks closed mixed. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 57.82 points at 10,031.28, closing safely above the 10,000 mark. Fears about the exposure U.S. banks to struggling Asian financial institutions seemed to be overdone yesterday. The S&P 500 also advanced. It added 6.71 points at 1,173.42.

However, tech rally fizzled as the Nasdaq composite index slid another 31.38 points to 1,940.71.