The Fed did what every one thought it would, taking the U.S. federal funds and discount rates down another 50 basis today.

And while it was good news, Fed chairman Alan Greenspan didn’t give any hints that he saw any kind of light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, the feeling was the Fed will still have to cut rates further to avoid a recession in the United States.

The unease tempered rate cut euphoria and left markets unsure where to go. Markets rallied after the announcement, but began selling off in the final trading hour. At the end of the session, North American markets were relatively unchanged.

While the Dow Jones industrial average was off 4.36 points at 10,872.97, the Nasdaq composite inched up 3.78 points to 2,085.70 and the S&P 500 finished up less than a point at 1,249.43.

Here in Canada the story was slightly more positive. The TSE 300, which hung around its opening level all day, rallied into the close and finished the day up 31.70 points at 8,041.70.

The strength came from the metals and minerals sub-index, up 2%, oil and gas, up 1.3% and conglomerates, up 1.5%.

Overall nine of the TSE’s 14 sub-indices advanced. Leading on the downside was paper and forest, down 1.3% and consumer products, down 1.1%. The influential industrial products sub-index was relatively unchanged on the day, finishing off 0.1%.

Volume was better than it has been for the last few days, at 155 million shares traded.

The trend among individual issues though, was strongly positive, with advancers outpacing decliners 607 to 508.

Gulf Canada was the most heavily traded issue on the day, dropping 5.93% to close at $9.29.

Nortel was second, sliding 3.50% to $20.70.

Nexus was popular again today, coming in third on the most active list. It dropped 13.46% to close at 22¢.

Bombardier had a good day, climbing 5.14% to close at $22.90. 360Networks continues to sell off, as investors worry about its debt problems. It closed down another 5.22% today at $2.36.

Hurricane Hydrocarbons Ltd. proposed to pay a $200 million dividend to shareholders to fight off the hostile takeover by Central Asian Holdings Ltd., which is trying to gain control of Hurricane’s Kazakhstan oil operations. Traders liked the sound of that plan and bid Hurricane up 14.74% to close at $11.99.

Telesystem International reported a first-quarter loss today, even though it increased its European and Brazilian wireless subscribers by 92%. Investors weren’t impressed and the stock dropped 21.87% today to close at $2.50.

The CDNX advanced14.31 points today to 3,181.18. That was on low volume of 34 million shares. Market trend was negative with 250 issues declining and 226 advancing.

The loonie seemed to gain from the nervousness in the U.S. It climbed 0.29% to close at US64.63¢