(May 11 – 17:30 ET) – Better than expected retail sales and positive consumer sentiment in the U.S. left investors scratching their chins about what the U.S. Federal Reserve will will do about interest rates, next Tuesday. The indecision prevented any real direction from forming in the market. As a result, many investors stayed on the sidleines, today.

Volume on the Toronto Stock Exchange 300 composite index was only 129 million. Even though this morning’s employment report was much better than expected, no one was in a buying mood. The TSE 300 finished the day down 97.8 points, falling to 8023.7. Overall ten subsectors were down on the day and only four advanced, none more than 1%. The market trend among individual issues was also negative, with 525 issues declining and 499 advancing.

The losses were heaviest among the consumer products and industrial products sectors today. Industrials fell 2.5% today, mostly on a 4.8% decline in Nortel Networks stock which closed at $22.48. RIM also helped to drag down the index. It fell 4.7%, closing at $44.20. The consumer products sector fell based on a 13.9% decline in the price of QLT, which closed at $31.53.

The merger of BioChem Pharma and Shire Pharmaceuticals was closed today. BioChem closed up 4.59% at $57.00.

The financials took a hot today. Some of the losses included BMO down 2.16% at $37.17, Bank of Nova Scotia off 3.54% at $39.21 and CIBC (which was heavily traded) off 2.78% at $49.58.

The action was light on the CDNX today, which traded a heavy 43 million shares. The small cap exchange ended the day up 11.71 points at 3176.72. Advancers outpaced decliners 238 to 207.

The CDNX was the only North American exchange that finished in the black today. In the U.S., the NASDAQ composite index drooped 21.43 points to 2107.43. The Dow Jones industrials index dropped 89.13 points to 10821.31. The S&P 500 slid 9.51 points at 1245.67.

The Canadian dollar also slid, today, dropping almost half a cent to close at US64.49¢.