By Jeff Sanford

(March 26 – 18:30 ET) – Selling pressure this afternoon knocked the TSE 300 off its midday highs, but the composite index still managed to carve out a gain of 46.67 points day, closing at 7,686.60.

The downward pressure came from the tech sector, which sold off after Cisco CEO John Chambers said he expects the weak economy to last at least another three-quarters. That caused the TSE’s industrial sub-index to fall 1.16%, while the rest of the market was relatively strong. Only three fo the 14 sub-indices closed lower.

On the upside, consumer products gained 3.61% and financial services advanced 2.21%. Real estates, pipelines and metals also did well.

Overall, advancing issues outpaced decliners 583 to 485. Volume was light at 110 million shares.

Bank stocks had an outstanding day. BMO gained 5.56% to $39.90. It was the second most heavily traded issue on the day.

CIBC gained 3.56% at $50, while TD rose 2.55% to $40.56, Royal climbed 2.26% to $47.50, and Bank of Nova Scotia advanced 3.66% to $40.48.

It was an up and down day for tech stocks. While RIM was off 8.23% to close at $38.71 and Nortel was off 3.12% to $26.42, , 360networ4ks rocketed up 16.84% to $5.55 and C-Mac jumped 6.38% to close at $36.70.

In the consumer products sector, Biovail made up some of the ground it lost over the last while. It climbed 8.01% to close at $54.10.

Norwegian forester, Norske Skog, announced today that it is buying Pacifica Papers Inc.. That sent Pacifica stock up 7.48% at $13.50.

The CDNX slipped9.83 points today to close at 2,970.59. Overall, 235 issues declined while 190 advanced.

The loonie recovered quite a bit today, climbing 0.70% to close at US64.30¢.

U.S. markets mirror the action in Toronto. Blue chips powered the Dow Jones industrial average to a 182.75 point advance, closing at 9,687.53. The S&P 500 gained 12.86 points to 1152.69.

Selling pressure in the tech stocks knocked the Nasdaq composite index down 10.19 points to 1,918.49.