Toronto’s main index was the only North Amerrican market guage to finish in the black today as U.S. stocks plummeted on investor worries about slow growth and uncertain corporate profits.

The S&P/TSX composite Index rose 35.61 points to 8,454.15. The winning sub-sectors today were energy, technology and the financials. The latter climbed 0.63%. Telecommunication stocks surged 2.84%.

On Wall Street, the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 42.70 points, or 2.23%, to 1,874.37, while the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 102.94 points, or 1.01%, to close at 10,046.13, according to the latest data.

The S&P 500 lost 14.79 points, or 1.33%, to 1,093.89.

U.S. stocks fell back from an early rally due to concern about economic growth.

Sector leaders like United Technologies, General Dynamics, Texas Instruments, Merck, JP Morgan, Imclone Systems and Motorola turned in strong quarterly reports, but analysts found fault in most of the earnings announcements.

Meanwhile, yesterday’s pronouncement by U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan that interest rates will continue to move higher to deal with inflation sent the greenback higher and the Canadian dollar lower. The loonie fell 0.55 of a cent to US75.58¢.