By Jeff Sanford

(April 19 – 18:00 ET) – North American indexes managed to hold onto yesterday’s gains, and even scraped out small advances by the closing bell.

The temptation to take some profits in the wake of yesterday’s surprise rate cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board must have been strong, considering the dismal performance of markets lately. But markets managed to hold on, boding well for performance over the near term.

The TSE 300 opened low, but came back steadily throughout the day. It finished up 16.5 points at 8,147.68, a gain of 0.2%.

Among the sub-indices, industrial products led the advance with a 1.6% gain. Also moving up over 1% were the paper and forest products and the communications and media, up 1.2% and 1.3% respectively. Overall, nine of the TSE’s 14 sub-indices advanced.

Market breadth among individual issues was just about neutral, with advancer edging out decliners 542 to 527. Volume was restrained compared to yesterday, with 167 million shares trading.

Trading in Nortel Networks was halted at 16:15 ET today as the company prepared to report first quarter earnings. You could feel the market holding its breath. Nortel was sitting relatively unchanged at $27.51, when trading was halted.

It will be interesting to see how the market takes this one in the morning. Although the company announced a first quarter loss of $385 million, or 12¢ a share, that’s still in line with the guidance provided a few weeks ago, so no surprises.

The company did say it’s going to lay off another 15,000 people, in addition to the 5,000 already announced. The company also refused to give any guidance for the next quarter or the rest of 2001.

“We only expect a meaningful rebound in capital spending following a period of industry rationalization and an improved economic environment. Given the uncertainty as to the extent and timing of these events, we are not providing specific financial guidance for the next quarter or full year 2001,” John Roth, CEO and president of Nortel, said in a news release.

The rest of the techs had good day. Celestica was up 12.77% at $75.50, C-Mac was up 9.01% at $50.20 and RIM was up 6.12% at $59. 360Networks, though, bucked the trend and dropped 4.71% to close at $4.05.

Although Methanex reported higher first quarter earnings yesterday and closed up slightly, it was heavily traded today closing down 13.06% at $11.98. Stelco had a strong day, climbing 9.28% to close at $4.12.

The CDNX climbed a slight 7.87 points to close at 3,029.50. Market breadth was also just about neutral, with 243 issues advancing and 233 declining. Volume was heavy at 44 million shares.

Currency traders decided they like the loonie again today as it jumped almost a full cent to close at US64.55¢.

As for U.S. markets, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 77.88 points at 10,693.71. The Nasdaq composite index gained 102.70 points at 2182.14, and the S&P 500 was up 15.54 points at 1,253.70.