U.S. traders returned from yesterday’s holiday to grim earnings news. Earnings pessimism weighed especially on tech stocks.

The TSE 300 ended the day off 48 points at 7683.

Much of that decline was a 2.4% drop in the industrial products sub-index. Also down were the golds, off 1.% and paper and forest stocks, off 0.8%.

Overall, market trend among the sub-indices was neutral, with seven up and seven down. On the upside, consumer products led with a 1.2% advance.

Market trend among individual shares was negative with decliners outpacing advancers 523 to 497.

Volume was 102 million shares. That was up compared to the last few days, though still low overall.

Nortel was the most heavily traded stock on the day, at about 6 million shares. It closed off another 66¢ at $13.

Itemus also continues to be heavily traded — and heavily sold. It dropped another half a cent today to close at 6¢.

360networks also continues to be heavily traded. It closed up 2¢ today at 14.5¢.

Other techs that were moving included RIM, which was off $2.65 at $46, and Celestica, which was off $2.98 at $71.83.

Although Bombardier announced it has received an order from the Netherlands Railway to overhaul and modernize some of its railcars, it was down on the day, dropping 54¢ to close at $22.51.

The CDNX today was off 10 points at 3.192 on low volume of 28 million shares. Declining issues outpaced advancers 181 to 138.

The loonie was relatively unchanged today closing up a slight 0.05% at US66.22¢.

In New York, the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index ended the day down 61 points at 2,080, a drop of 2.83%. Blue chips, though, fared slightly better. The Dow Jones industrial average declined 91 points to 10,480, while the S&P 500 was off 15 points at 1,219.