Selloff accelerates: Losses top 300 points for TSX and Dow

North American stock markets staged a broad sell-off Friday amid profit taking and a disappointing outlook from construction equipment maker Caterpillar.

The S&P/TSX composite index ended the daydown 330.37 pointsat 14,001.66.

Every sector was in negative territory, with the biggest drops coming in health care (down 4.8 per cent), mining (2.8 per cent), energy (2.8 per cent) and gold(2.5 per cent). The heavily-weighted financials group dropped 2.0 per cent.

Oil and gold prices moved lower following big recent runups. Oil futures topped $90 US a barrel in overnight trading, but later fell back below $89 US.Bullion futures slipped slightly.

Financial stocks fell after the fourth-biggest bank in the U.S., Wachovia, reported lower earnings after majorwritedowns for bad loans and mortgage-backed securities.

The weakness in health care was due largely to a 34 per cent drop in the shares of Angiotech Pharma. The Vancouver-based drug company cut its full-year outlook and warned it would lose money in the third quarter because of delays in reporting revenue from new product lines.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 366.94 points to close at 13,522.02. Allof the 30 Dow stocks ended lower.Dow component Caterpillar lowered its full-year profit forecast, citing the U.S. housing slump. It dropped 5.5 per cent.

The Nasdaq composite index was down 74 points at 2,725.

Friday's sell-off came on the20th anniversary of "Black Monday," when the Dow and TSX both suffered their biggest one-day percentage losses ever.

The Dow dropped 508 points on Oct. 19, 1987 —a plunge that amounted to more than 22 per cent. The benchmark index of the TSX lost 11 per cent of its value that day.