By Jeff Sanford

(April 12 – 18:00 ET) – It looked like another lost day for the TSE 300 as it opened low on a dark and rainy morning in downtown Toronto. The composite stayed low for the first half of the day, but that pessimism turned around in the afternoon.

Like the weather, which cleared and turned into the first really beautiful spring day in Toronto, the index strengthened through the afternoon to close up 122.54 points at 7,835.22.

The gain was primarily on the back of strengthening tech stocks. The Industrial products sub-index advanced 7.93%. Gold and consumer products also made strong gains. Eight of the TSE’s 14 sub-indices finished the day higher.

On the downside, metals and minerals led with a 3.1% decline. Market breadth among individual issues was fairly strong with advancers outpacing decliners 627 to 417. Volume was relatively light, though, at 155 million shares in front of the long Easter weekend.

Nortel Networks led the most active list, with a 13.15% advance to close at $25.72. Research In Motion also had a big day, climbing 28.09% to close at $44. Celestica gained 12.58% to close at $53.70 and C-Mac climbed 13.44% to $40.84. JDS advanced 12.78% to $35.75.

A couple of the big banks, though, didn’t fare as well. Bank of Nova Scotia, the third most heavily traded issue was off 2.60% to close at $40.05. Royal was off 2.81% at $42.27.

360Networks dropped 2.18% to $4.93. Inco fell 2.72% to close at $25.05.

BCE Emergis though was ahead a good 4.87% to close at $30.15, while Air Canada strengthened 3.07% to close at $8.40.

The CDNX was also up today, climbing 37.62 points to close at 2,974.29. Market breath was strongly positive, with advancers outpacing decliners 280 to 194. Volume was low though at 35 million shares.

The loonie finished up 0.23% to close at US64.15ยข.

In New York, tech stocks continued their recent strong performance. For the fourth day in a row the Nasdaq composite index advanced, this time 3.29% to 1,961.434. The Dow Jones industiral average was also up, though only 1.13% to 10,126.94. The S&P 500 gained 1.51% to end the week at 1,183.50.

Markets are closed tomorrow for Good Friday.