By Jeff Sanford

(March 28 – 18:30 ET) – The TSE 300 fell 3.16% today on yesterday’s bad news from Nortel Networks. The composite index closed at 7,506.50, a drop of 244.83 points.

The industrial products sub-index plunged 10.08%. Within the industrials, Nortel led the way drop with a falling 18.33% to close at $21.48. Other former tech high flyers joined Nortel on the express elevator down. RIM was off 16.99% to $32. C-Mac lost 10.90% to close at $34.75. JDS fell 13.80% to $33.10 and Celestica dropped 9.27% to close at $46.50.

Their wasn’t must strength elsewhere on the TSE either. Pipelines was the only sub-index to advance, inching up a slight 0.43%. Everything else was down or flat.

Utilities, real estate, metals, golds, consumer products and communications were all off over 1%.

Among individual issues, the market trend was dramatically negative, decliners outpaced advancers 708 to 390.

Among individual issues, Vintage Petroleum launched a $489 takeover bid for Canada’s Genesis Exploration Ltd., sending stock in Genesis up 20.47% to close at $18.07.

AD OPT, which released a less than stellar earnings report on Monday, felt the wrath of investors today, dropping 21.87% to close at $2.50.

Although ATI reported a loss for the quarter today, investors bid it up 6.02% to close at $7.05.

The CDNX was also off today, dropping 25.32 points to close at 2,963.39. Decliners edged out advancers 267 to 231 issues on volume of 37 million shares.

The loonie strengthened slightly today, moving up 0.17% to close at US63.87¢.

In the U.S., profit worries prompted broad-based selling. Tech markets were hit especially hard hit, with the Nasdaq composite dropping 5.99% to close at 1,854.13. The Dow Jones industrial average got off with only a 1.63% drop to close at 9,785.35, while the S&P 500 fell 2.44% to close at 1,153.29.