By Jeff Sanford

(February 22 – 18:30 ET) – The TSE 300, which opened below 8,000 this morning, found some buying support during the afternoon. It closed up 72.45 points at 8,143.26.

Most of the sub-indices also finished higher. The upside was led by a 3.77% advance in pipelines and a 2.78% advance in golds. Only three sectors declined — conglomerates, communications and consumer.

Volume was heavy again today with 196 million shares trading. Among individual issues, market trend was slightly negative, with 592 decliners and 508 advancers.

Much of today’s strength came from a 4.14% gain in Nortel Nortel. It closed at $30.70. Volume was extremely heavy at 24 million shares.

The second most heavily traded, was Bombardier, which was off a slight 1.63% to close at $21.15. C-Mac also recovered somewhat today, closing up 6.52% at $42.50.

CGI group continued to whither today, ending off another 10.19% to close at $6.08. Shareholders didn’t seem to like the fact that the board of directors adopted a shareholders rights plan today.

According to the plan, if anyone announces an intention to acquire more than 20% of the company’s shares without complying with the “Permitted Bid” provisions or approval of the board, rights holders can purchase common shares in the company at a substantial discount to market price.

Current shareholders didn’t seem to like that and shares in the company plummeted 30.35%, even though the company also reported revenues were up by 30%. Shares in the company closed at $3.97.

Among the financials, it was a mixed bag. Bank of Nova Scotia was up 3.06%, Sun Life gained 6.38%, Manulife edged up 4.88% and Royal gained 1.28%. On the downside, TD, BMO, National and CIBC were all off.

An announcement by Domtar that it has filed a prospectus to issue $250 million worth of medium term notes over the next two years bumped up its stock 3.28%. It closed at $12.60.

The CDNX dipped 17.31 points at 3,093.44 on volume of 40 million shares. Decliners slightly outpaced advancers, 287 to 224.

After correcting slightly yesterday, the loonie slumped again today, dropping 0.11% to close at US65.03¢.

In the U.S., markets were similarly chaotic. The Dow Jones industrial average was up and down through out the day before finally closing relatively neutral at 10,526.81, a slight gain of 0.23 of a point.

On Nasdaq, an early selloff reversed itself by midday. The tech heavy Nasdaq composite index ended the day down 23.98 points at 2,244.96, its lowest close in two years.

The chart for the S&P 500 closed off 2.60 points at 1,252.67.