It was a hectic day for the TSE 300. The composite index moved back and forth across yesterday’s close almost a dozen times during today’s session.

When it finally came to rest the TSE 300 was down a slight 3 points on the day. It closed at 8,191, on overall volume of 141 million shares.

Movement among sub-indices was split, eight of the 14 groups declined on the day.

On the upside, transportation was out front with a gain of 1.4%. That was followed by financial services, which gained 1.3%.

On the downside, oil and gas was off 1.6%, metals and minerals and pipelines off 1.5%, gold 1.4% and utilities 1.2%.

Within the oil and gas sector Precision Drilling fell 5.6% to $57.70, and Compton dropped 4.2% to $5.30.

Overall, market trend among individual issues was also just about even with decliners outpacing advancers 572 to 523.

Within financial services, insurance stocks did well: Sun Life was up 3% to close at $35.09, while Manulife gained 2.3% to $41.25. Bank of Montreal gained 2% to close at $42.27.

On the most active list today Teck Corp came in third. It backed off gains made earlier this week, dropping 7.53% and closing at $14.98.

360networks was also heavily traded today and dropped 12.21% to close at $1.51.

Certicom also continued to sell off, dropping 9.35% to $6.30.

Nortel Networks closed relatively unchanged, dropping a slight 0.25% to $20. A few techs managed to advance today. RIM rose 3.66% to $54.94 and Celestica jumped 4.78% to $83.98.

The CDNX today was off 6 points today, closing at 3,358. Volume of 39 million shares. Market trend was negative with 243 issues declining and 212 advancing.

The loonie continued to strengthen today, climbing another 0.15% to close at US65.66ยข.

In New York, Intel said after the bell that it expects second-quarter revenue to come in slightly below US$6.2 billion. The announcement ended speculation that the chip-maker would lower its revenue forecast.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 20 points to finish at 11,091. The Nasdaq composite index was up a strong 46 points to 2,264, and the S&P 500 advanced 7 points to 1,277.