By Jeff Sanford

(March 19 – 18:30 ET) – Traders gained some confidence this afternoon in advance of tomorrow’s FOMC meeting on U.S. interest rates. The TSE 300 climbed steeply toward the close, ending the day up 158.93 points, or 2%, at 7,911.14.

Most traders sat out the session though, deciding to wait for the news tomorrow. Volume was only 107 million shares. Toronto stocks opened lower this morning and had seemed jittery through most of the day’s session

The late afternoon rally saw gains in every sub-index. Transportation led the way up with a 3.9% advance. Also up were strongly were the industrials and the golds, with gains of 3% and 2.9%, respectively. Consumer products, utilities and metals posted gains of over 2%

The trend among individual issues was also positive, though, not so strong, with 621 advancers and 442 decliners.

The transportation sector was led by a 13.9% advance in the stock of Trojan Technologies. Transat was gained 5.4 % while stock in Canadian National advanced 4.2%.

Among the techs, Research In Motion jumped 14.8% to $46.50, Celestica climbed 11.3% to $59.22 and MGI Software popped up 17.4% to $3, after signing a licencing deal with Palm Inc, maker of palm pilots.

Nortel Networks finished the day up 3.5% at $27.85. Itemus, though, lost 13.3% to close at$19.79 on news that it cancelled a special shareholders meeting that had been scheduled to discuss its takeover of Shooting Gallery Inc.

The gold sector was led by Kinross, up 6.2% and Echo Bay Mines, up 4.6% to close at $1.38.

In the consumer products sector, Axcan Pharma advanced 18.19% to close at $16.50. No news on that move. Patheon Inc. gained 13.8% and Lorus Therapeutics was up 11.9% at $1.88 after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted approval to proceed with a clinical trial for its anti-cancer drug GTI-2501.

In the metals, a 4.2% advance (to $27.10) in Inco offset a 16.7% decrease in the value of Boliden Ltd, which closed at 65¢.

Financial stocks advanced in anticipation of rate cuts from the Fed tomorrow. TD advanced 3% at $41.00, BMO gained 2.5% at $38.74 and Sun Life climbed 4.8% at $29.12.

Air Canada reported today that it flew 4.8% more traffic in February than was flown by Air Canada and Canadian Airlinces combined in February 2000. The news helped Air Canada stock advance 3.51% to $8.85.

The CDNX was also extremely quiet today, with only 26 million shares trading. The venture capital exchange lost15.19 points at 3,020.99. Today’s session saw 251 decliners versus 209 advancers.

The loonie continued to suffer today slipping to US63.79¢ U.S.

In New York., anticipation of rate cuts on Tuesday led to a late session rally. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 135.70 points to close at 9,959.11. The Nasdaq composite index rose 60.28 points to 1,951.19. The S&P 500 advanced 20.28 points to 1,170.81.