By Jeff Sanford

(May 3 – 17:00 ET) – Pessimism about tomorrow’s U.S. employment report kept indexes across North America in the red today. The Toronto Stock Exchange 300 composite index opened low and stayed down throughout the day, dropping 62.3 points to 7956.10.

The TSE slide was led by a 2.7% decline in the industrial products sector and a 2.7% decline in the gold sector. Another nine sectors were off on the day including consumer products, financial services, real estate and communications. The transportation sector closed unchanged. Only the oil and gas sector and the paper and forest sectors ended the day up, gaining 0.5 and 0.3% respectively.

Among individual issues, market trend was similarly negative. While 441 issues advanced on the day, 577 declined. Market volume was 150 million.

The big banks were split in heavy trading. CIBC lost 1.82% to $48.60. TD declined 1.79% to $38.43 and BMO slipped 1.17% to $34.64. Royal Bank bucked the trend, adding 1.03% to $44.13. Sun Life jumped ahead at 4.85% to close at $32.40. Investors Group also had a good day, gaining 3.81% closing at $22.32.

Telesystem International continued to sell-off today, dropping another 7.19% to close at $2.97.

Biomira ran into strong buying pressure, rising 17.14% to close at $13.94 on news it is teaming up with Merck to research cancer drugs.

Although Magna International warned today that next quarter’s earnings will be flat, it leapt 7.66% to close at $86.60. The auto parts maker had made the same prediction last quarter, which was good considering the state of the automotive sector.

The CDNX finished 6.49 points ahead today at 3100.16 on volume of 42 million shares. Market trend was negative though with 203 issues declining and 232 advancing.

The Canadian dollar was relatively unchanged today, dropping only 0.03% to US65.25¢.

In the U.S., the NASDAQ composite index slid 74.40 points to close at 2146.20. The Dow Jones industrials index fell 80.03 points to close at 10796.65. The S&P 500 slipped 18.85 points to close at 1248.58.