Nasdaq dropped below 2,000 today as North American markets ran into heavy selling pressure through the afternoon.

At the closing bell, Nasdaq was off 2.01% at 1989, a decline of 41 points. The Dow was also off, though not as much, closing down 152 points at 10424, a decline of 1.44%. The S&P 500 was also off substantially at 1191, a drop of 20 points.

The only good news: trading was light, reflecting a lack of conviction in the declines.

In Canada the TSE suffered a 21-point drop, closing at 7627.

Among the subsectors, metals and minerals led the decline, dropping 1.3%. Also down were the consumer products, industrial products and conglomerates sector. The upside was led by the oil and gas sector, transportation and the paper and forest sector. Overall, market trend among subsectors was negative, with eight sectors dropping and six advancing.

Market volume was extremely light, with only 99 million shares trading. The trend among individual issues was also negative with 518 declining and 459 advancing.

On the most active list, RIM came in near the top, but was heavily sold. It ended the day off $6.23 to close at $36.70 on news that BellSouth’s interactive subscriber growth (users of RIM’s BlackBerry) were weak.

News that IMRglobal Corp. has been hit with a class action suit of the price of those companies announced merger with CGI led to a 3.10% drop in the price of CGI today. It closed at $8.76.

The CDNX today was off 6 points at 3078 on volume of 27 million shares. Decliners slightly outpaced advancing issues 175 to 159.

The loonie continued to decline today, dropping another 0.15% to close at 64.74.