By Jeff Sanford

(January 8 – 18:00 ET) – With last week’s rate cuts behind us and their positive effect still a couple of months ahead, traders aren’t finding any compelling reasons to get into the market.

The TSE 300 closed at 8,671.66, a loss of 18.57 points, but higher than its mid-afternoon low of 8,577.18.

Among the sub-indices, industrial products led on the downside with a 1.65% drop. That was followed by a 1.27% drop in real estate and a 1% drop in the financial services. Eight sub-indices finished higher. Metals pulled out a 2.14% advance, gold was up 1.61% and paper was up 1.23%.

Among individual issues, 480 advanced while 559 declined. Trading though was relatively slack. Only 11 million shares were traded over the day.

Volatility was at a minimum today, with intra-day price swings remaining relatively mild. Few stocks moved either up or down more than 3%, including heavy weight Nortel which was down 1.01% to close at $48.80.

Shareholders are punishing Laidlaw following a conference call Friday that was short on details about its restructuring program. Company officials cited the new “fair disclosure” environment as the reason for its tight-lipped meeting. Laidlaw finished the day down 16.67% at 22.50¢

CGI seems to be benefiting from the deal announced last week to supply Sun Life’s British operations with mainframes and PCs — the stock gained 10.66%.

Shares in Gulf Canada did well today, climbing 3.55% to close at $7.30.

QLT Inc. was slipped 4.29% to $41.

The CDNX shed 10.40 points to 2,941.79. Market breadth was about evenly split with 239 issues declining and 227 advancing. Volume was 36 million shares.

The loonie moved ahead a strong 0.28% on the day, closing at US66.93¢.

In New York, markets were similarly uninspired. Stocks recovered near the close after dropping sharply during midafternoon.

The Dow Jones industrial average slid 40.66 to 10,621.35. The Nasdaq composite slipped 11.73 points to 2,395.92, while the S&P 500 was down 2.49 points to 1,295.86.