By Jeff Sanford

(March 29 – 18:00 ET) – Traders today focused their attention on continuing earnings warnings and evidence that the global economy is catching the U.S. cold. The TSE 300 closed today’s session down 67.74 points at 7,444.78, it’s lowest level in 16 months.

Among the TSE sub-indices only pipelines and real estate finished the day up, everything else was off. More negative news hit technology stocks today. The industrial products sub-index slipped 1.4%.

Within industrials, MGI software plummeted 29.8% to close at $2, Sierra wireless was off 19.9% at $28.9 and Descartes Systems was off 13.7% at $19.45. C-Mac closed down 6.47% at $32.50, while RIM bounced a bit from yesterday’s loss, closing up 2.06% at $32.66. JDS Uniphase slid 12.39% at $29.

The transportation sub-index fell 3% on a 3.7% decline in Canadian National stock. CN closed at $57.18. The utilities sub-index was off 1.7% on a 16% decline in the price of 360Networks. The stock closed at $5.25.

Among individual issues, market breadth was negative, with decliners outpacing advancers 569 to 468. Today’s volume was 144.4 million shares.

Insurance stocks were heavily traded today. Industrial Alliance advanced 2.93% to $35.10. Clarica was also up, gaining 3,83% to close at $40.65. Sun Life added 2.93% to close at $29.49. The fund companies didn’t fare as well, C.I. was off a heavy 5.10% today to close at $12.10.

An offer from Interfor to buy Primex sent stock in Primex rocketing up 51.26%. It closed at $6.58.

The CDNX today was off 5.83 points at 2,957.55. Decliners outpaced advancers 248 to 234 on volume of 35 million shares.

The loonie headed lower, again, today, closing down almost half a cent at US63.60¢.

In the United States, the Dow Jones industrial average made slight headway, gaining 13.71 points to 9,799.06. Tech jitters chopped 33.56 points of the Nasdaq Composite Index. It closed at 1,820.57. The broader-market S&P 500 slipped 5.34 points to 1,147.95.