By Jeff Sanford

(May 22 – 18:00 ET) – The Toronto Stock Exchange was the champion of North American markets today. The TSE 300 composite index gained 124.75 points to advance 1.51% at 8,395.30. It was playing catch up to U.S. markets though, which enoyed good gains Monday while the TSE was closed.

On Wall Street, markets seemed to run out of energy. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 80.08 points to close at 11,257.24, the S&P 500 was off 3.45 points at 13,09.38 and Nasdaq could only scrape out a tiny 8.25 point advance.

Back on the TSE, the action was in the techs. The industrial products sub-index advanced 5.9% today. The biggest moves included C-Mac, up 11.5% at $58.25, RIM, up 11.3% at $61.65 and Celestica, up 10% at $94.25. Nortel gained a strong 7.9% at $23.95.

The consumer products sector, communications and merchandising sectors were all up over 1%.

Although market trend among the sectors was even, among individual stocks it was strongly positive, with advancers outpacing decliners 685 to 471.Volume was 168 million shares.

Some of Canada’s blue chips were showing good strength today. Bombardier was heavily traded and up 4.83% at $23.65. Stelco gained 4.27% to close at $5.37.

Rogers stock found favour with buyers today. It climbed 7.97% to close at $23.70.

Onex advanced 5.46% to climb to $24.15.

Debt-ridden miner, Boliden announced a restructuring deal Friday that kept its Chilean properties under its control Falconbridge has threatened to sue Boliden for allegedly reneging on a deal to sell the properties. Whatever the outcome, so far the spat is good for Bolien — it gained 36.92% to close at 89¢ today.

The loonie sold off over the day and was off 0.34% at US64.9¢

The CDNX finished the day up a slight 5.68 points. It closed at 3,281.46. Volume was heavy at 49 million shares. Market trend was just about neutral, with 275 issues advancing and 272 issues declining.