It was a good day for Toronto stocks. Thanks to strength in tech stocks, the TSE 300 opened high and stayed there, gaining 41.60 points to close at 8064.20.

Market trend among the TSE sub-indices was slightly positive. The strength was in techs, financial services, transportation, consumer products, oil, communications and conglomerates. The industrial products sector led the way with a 1.3% advance.

Metals, gold, real estate, pipelines, utilities and merchandising finished the day down.

Among individual issues market trend was negative though, with decliners outpacing advancers 568 to 507. Volume was light at 128 million shares.

Nortel Networks led the most active list today, gaining 3.19% to close at $25.59.

Telesystem international was second on the list of most actives, as it continues to attract attention. Traders dropped it though in the wake of an announcement that the comany will ask shareholders to consolidate its shares on a five to one basis. The move is necessary to maintain a listing on Nasdaq, which requires a minimum share price of US$5. Traders took the announcement badly, dropping the stock some 23.71% to close at $2.80.

An announcement that Interealty Corp, which develops real estate software, has closed a deal with PocketRealEstate.com, to allow Interealty customers access to thousands of real estate listings, sent stock in Interealty parent company, Geac, up 20.50% to close at $2.41. Geac was the fourth most heavily traded issue on the day.

360networks was off another 6.55% at $2.14 in heavy trading.

The CDNX did well, finishing ahead 16.85 points to close at 3,148.31. Market trend though was negative, with 232 issues declining and only 208 advancing. Volume was low at 37 million shares.

The loonie was off another 0.35% today at US64.64ยข.

In New York, techs led as well, lifting the Nasdaq composite index to to a 25.20 point gain. It closed at 2,198.77.

Today’s weak U.S. productivity report hit U.S. blue chips, though. The Dow Jones industrial average was off 51.66 points at 10,883.51, while the broader-market S&P 500 was off 2.31 points at 1,261.20.