Toronto stocks slipped shortly after the open this morning and traded in a narrow range all day. At the close, the TSE 300 was down 50.50 points at 7,644.70.

The losses were broad-based, 11 of the TSE’s 14 sub-indices closed lower. Only real estate, conglomerates and oil and gas managed to post gains.

Among the losers, golds and the tech-heavy industrial products sub-index suffered losses of 1.57% and 1.18%, respectively. All other losses were below 1%, including the paper and forest sub-index.

As expected today, the U.S. Department of Commerce imposed a whopping 19.31% duty today on Canadian softwood lumber. The ruling will result in preliminary duties being applied to all imports of softwood lumber from Canada.

High preliminary rulings on subsidies are generally dismissed at a later stage, or on appeal, and investors seemed to take this to heart.

Volume on the TSE was 105 million shares. Once again, decliners outpaced advancers 539 to 466, with 231 issues closing unchanged.

Yesterday’s tech gainers pulled back today, led by Nortel Networks. Nortel, the day’s top trader, finished down almost 3% in heavy trading of 13.7 million shares, as traders digested effects of its planned US$1.5 billion debt issue. The stock closed at $11.33, down 35¢.

Yesterday’s belle of the ball, C-Mac Industries, closed down 41¢ at $40.19.

The only decent buying volume was in CP, today’s number two trader. The stock gained 66¢ to $60.35, a gain of 1.1%. Volume was 7.5 million shares.

The CDNX shrugged off losses earlier in the week to advance 6.33 points to 3,090.29. Trading was active on a volume of 31.9 million shares, with 152 advances, 172 declines and 546 issues unchanged.

It was a see-saw day for the Dow Jones industrial average, which managed to turn a triple-digit intra-day loss into a triple-digit gain by the close. The Dow Jones racked up an advance of 117.69 points to 10,416.25, a gain of 1.14%.

The S&P 500 was up 6.73 points at1,190.16, while the Nasdaq composite index slipped 6.85 points to 1,956.16.