By Jeff Sanford

(April 3 – 18:00 ET) – Evidently there was still some air in the bubble. Indexes across North America plunged again today. The TSE 300 finished the day off 198 points at 7,444, a decline of 2.60%.

Investors flocked to gold today as a defensive play sending that sector up 2%, the only TSE sub-index to post gains today.

The industrials products led on the downside, dropping a massive 6%. Also down was consumer products, off 3%, and financial services, off 2%.

Market breadth among individual issues was decidedly downward, with decliners outpacing advancers 536 to 403 moving higher. Volume was 150 million shares.

The most active stock was Nortel Networks, which was heavily sold, dropping 8% to close at $20.42. All the major techs got hit, too. C-Mac was down 7.81% to $28.90, Celestica was down 7.69% to $39.23, RIM was down 7.71% to $28.25, and Descartes Systems was off a heavy 16.92% to $16.70.

Some big losses among old economy companies included Hollinger’s drop of 7.14% to close at $13. Bombardier fell 5.46% to close at $21.65, even though it received permission today from European officials to acquire DaimlerChrysler AG’s rail unit Adtranz.

Among the banks some of the biggest losses were TD off 2.39% to $38.80, BMO off 2.56% to $38.49 and Royal off 2.22% to $46.79. Among insurance companies, Sun Life closed down 3.39% at $29.95, while Manulife was off 3.21% at $40.65. CI Fund Management closed off 5.46% at $11.25.

Although most gold companies were up today, Franco Nevada slipped 80¢ lower to $16.94, the day after it announced a deal with Australia’s Normandy Mining Ltd.

The CDNX was also heavily sold today, dropping 97.81 points to close at 2,908.21. Overall, 300 issues declined while only 118 advanced. Volume was heavy, with 45 million shares trading.

The loonie slipped another 0.22% today to close at US63.34¢.

The story was much the same in the United States. The Dow Jones industrial average fell off 292.22 points at 9,485.71. The Nasdaq composite index finished off 109.97 at 1,673, a drop of 6.17%. The S&P 500 fell 39.41 points to 1,106.46.