By Jeff Sanford

(April 24 – 18:00 ET) – North American indices moved lower today as weaker earnings continued to batter tech stocks. The TSE 300 slipped 38.10 points to close at 7,891.70.

Among the sub-indices, the mood was also negative as 10 finished the day lower, although the declines were quite slight. Only the utilities sub-index declined by more than 1%.

On the upside, transportation, gold, conglomerates and real estate moved ahead.

The trend was similar among individual issues with decliners outpacing advancers 569 declined to 517. Volume was 158 million shares.

Investors concerned about 360Networks credit facility, forced the company to announce today that it is meeting its debt payments. The announcement was too late to put out the fire in 360 stock, which plunged some 26.15% to close at $2.40. It was the most heavily traded stock of the day with some 10 million shares trading hands.

News that JDS Uniphase is laying 5,000 employees led to a 13.87% drop in the price of its shares. The issue closed at $33.85 today.

Select financials were hit hard today, with Royal off 2.15% at $42.75. Bank of Montreal was off 2.23% at $36 and Bank of Nova Scotia was off 2.98% at $39.10. TD though advanced a slight 0.13% at $38.61. CIBC was up 0.20% at $51.05.

Algoma Steel snapped back smartly today after big losses yesterday on news that it is seeking court protection from creditors. It was up 28.00% at 32¢.

The CDNX today dropped 4.01 points to close at 3,036.74. Market breadth was also negative with 249 issues declining and 213 advancing. Market volume was normal at 41 million shares.

The loonie was relatively unchanged today, moving only 0.02% to close at US64.64¢.

Although markets were up on Wall Street this morning, they finished down. Lower than expected consumer confidence numbers had markets trading higher on the hopes of further cuts to U.S. interest rates. But the hope for what might be couldn’t withstand downbeat earnings from tech companies.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 77.89 points to 10,454.34. The Nasdaq composite index was off 42.71 points at 2,016.61 and the S&P 500 slipped 14.89 points to 1209.47.