By Jeff Sanford

(March 14 – 18:30 ET) – It was another miserable day on the Toronto Stock Exchange as Nortel Networks hit a new 52-week low and the TSE 300 plunged 152.56 points to close at 7,806.90.

Every sub-index finished the day lower except real estate, which posted a slight gain of 0.18%, and transportation, which closed unchanged.

On the downside, the industrial sub-index led with a 3.38% decline. That was followed by a 2.57% decline in metals, a 2.33% decline in financial services, a 2.19% decline in the conglomerates sector, a 1.45% decline in gold and a 1.17% decline in the paper and forest sector.

Among individual issues, market breadth was strongly negative, with 717 decliners and only 364 advancers. Many investors were sitting on the sidelines though, as volume was light at 139 million shares.

Among the techs, Nortel fell 6% to $23.97, 360Networks dropped 4.19% to $8, Descartes Systems lost 5.35% to $23 and Research In Motion tumbled 8.86% to $58.50.

C-Mac bucked the trend, advancing 2.73% to $30.10, as did JDS which gained 1.46% to $38.81. Celestica also post gains, closing 1.22% higher at $63.39.

Among the financials, Sun Life and Manulife were off 4.17% and 4.34% respectively, to close at $28.75 and $40.15. TD slipped 3.47%, Royal 1%, BMO 3.17% and bank of Nova Scotia 1.66% and CIBC 1.11%.

Canadian blue-chips also took a beating. Canadian Pacific ended the day $55.90, a decline of 2.97%, while Bombardier ended the day off 2.05% at $20.56. Also down were Alcan, off 2.60% at $58.10, and Inco, off 2.49% at $27.40.

Is this a sign of a slowing economy? Caldwell Partners, an executive search firm, dropped 6.06% to $1.55.

The CDNX was also hit today. It shed 48.40 points to 3,027.73, a decline of 1.6%. Market breadth was also heavily negative, with 312 decliners and only 181 advancers. Volume was light at 34 million shares.

Bad news in the currency market. The loonie plunged almost one whole cent today, closing at US64.21¢, off 0.93% from yesterday’s close.

In the United States, fears that downgrades on Japanese banks could hurt U.S. banks through derivative positions and loan exposure lent to the existing negative mood.

The Dow Jones led the decline with a 317.34 point selloff to close under 10,000 at 9,973.46. The Nasdaq composite fell down 42.69 points to 1,972.09. The broader market S&P 500 was down a heavy 31.09 points at 1,166.57.