By Jeff Sanford

(August 18 – 17:30 ET) – The TSE finished the day well above the Dow Jones composite index again. The TSE opened strong and finished the day up another 35.65 points at 11133.80 — well above the Dow which closed at 11046.48

That’s the second record in as many days for the TSE. Considering that the TSE began the week at less than 10800, it’s been a strong five-day run of continual gains. The index hit 11196.92 in early morning trading today. The strong finish can be attributed once again to Nortel, which posted a 1.17% gain. Much of the rest of the market was lacklustre, though. Traders are waiting for the U.S. Federal Reserve meeting next week, when the Fed is expected to make its last decision on interest rates until after the American election.

Overall on the TSE, 571 issues advanced and 500 declined. Eight of the subindices were up and five down. Leading the upside were paper and forest and the consumer products indices. Leading the downside were communications and oil, though none lost over 1%. Volume was average, with 128 million shares trading hands.

As for individual stocks, Heritage Concepts was the most heavily traded, with over 19 million shares moving today. Williams Multi-Tech was second most popular, with over 6 million shares traded. Heritage lost 11% on the day while Williams posted a gain of 9%. Bombardier was popular again today, but the company witnessed its share price drop 1.7%.

Following its strong earnings announcement yesterday, TD Bank was another favourite. It added 30¢ to its share price of $39.70.

Research In Motion lost $1.40 to close at $92.05, while JDS Uniphase was up $3.95 on news that it and Nortel may have hammered out a supply deal.

The CDNX finished the day at 3352.76, a gain of 17.88 points.

The incredible news from Stats Can today that our trade surplus hit an unbelievable $5 billion in June–well-above the $3.7 billion analysts were predicting—should have had a positive effect on the loonie. And, shortly after the news was announced, the loonie began to climb. However, it reversed direction later in the day and closed down slightly from Thursday’s close at 67.77¢ U.S.

In the U.S., all markets closed slightly down today, as traders clear their chips from the table in front of next week’s Fed meeting. The NASDAQ was down 10.53 points at 3930.34, while the S&P 500 was down 4.35 points at 1491.72.