What else could go wrong after a week of dismal news except for, say Nortel to announce massive losses and layoffs … oh, wait a minute.

Well, it’s not like 360networks would default on its debt or anything … ahhhh. Well at least there’s JDS unless, of course, they were downgraded after issuing an earnings warning. Today was a bad day to be in Canadian markets.

While American markets closed lower, that was nothing compared to the carnage on Bay Street. The TSE 300 shed 104 points to close at 7,816.

As they say, when it rains it pours, but rain doesn’t make such an ugly sound when it hits the floor. The dull thud you heard was all three former high flyers — 360, JDS and Nortel — hitting new lows.

After trading some 40 million shares during the session, Nortel closed at a level not seen since late in 1998. At the final bell Nortel sat at $15.17, a drop of 6.53% on the day. Ouch. Even Jean Chrètien felt the need to step in and comment, calling Nortel a “very sound” company.

Nortel was trading as low as $13.42 early in the day. That brings its market cap to about $45 billion, down from the $375 billion it boasted in July 2000.

There is one bit of good news. Indexers will be happy to know their portfolios are slightly more diversified now that Nortel makes up only 6% of the TSE 300, rather than the 36% it represented a short time ago.

JDS Uniphase fell even harder than Nortel. It lost $2.90 to $20, a drop of 12.66%, while 360networks dropped another 19 cents to close at 46 cents, a loss of 29.23%. Both prices represent new lows for the companies.

There weren’t any bright spots on the TSE today. Of the four sub-indices that advanced — real state, pipelines, merchandising and communications and media — none was up more than half a percent.

Industrial products was the big loser with a 2.9% decline. Gold was right behind with a 2.2% drop. Conglomerates sector was off 1.9%, while and financial services slipped 1.4%.

The market trend among individual stocks was similarly negative with 638 issues declining and only 450 advancing. Total volume on the day was 193 million shares.

More bad news? Abitibi today announced more downtime and that it would be cutting newsprint prices by 25% a tonne. The announcment dropped its stock 3.03% to close at $12.17.

Among the financials, BMO was off 2.96%, TD slipped 1.78%, Bank of Nova Scotia was off 2.42% and CIBC dropped 2.61%. Royal avoided those losses and suffered only a 0.10% decline.

The CDNX was the place to be today. It lost only 6 points to close at 3,324. That was on low volume of 34 million shares. Market trend was negative with 247 issues declining and 216 advancing.

The loonie actually scraped out an advance today. It gained 0.08% to close at US$65.74.

On Wall Street, the losses were more moderate. The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 66.points to10,623. The Nasdaq composite index shed 15 points to 2,028, and the S&P 500 down edged down five points to 1,214.