Tuesday was a big day for earnings reports in Canada and the United States. A number of major companies announced profits were up, but that wasn't good enough for some investors.

Market summary: The Dow-Jones Index: Plunged 191 points, the fourth biggest point drop so far this year for the Dow. The NASDAQ: Down 98 points, its fourth-worst one-day drop ever. The S & P: Fell 98 points. Toronto: Dropped right along with New York. The TSE300 lost 121 points. Gold-mining stocks held up well, gaining one per cent. But every other subindex ended deep in negative territory.

For investors, the earnings reports are old news.

Robert Callander of Caldwell Securities says investors are more concerned about the future. They sense uncertainty in the markets, have fears of rising interest rates and questions about Y2K issues.

On Tuesday, investors pulled money out of big names like IBM and Microsoft, after those companies expressed caution about the outlook for future profits. That news helped send stock indexes tumbling.

Some of the numbers:

All told, strong earnings in a wide range of sectors. Much of this news is encouraging, despite what happened on the markets.

Craig Strachan of TD Evegreen says the earnings reports demonstrate how strong the U.S. economy is, "and it's really pulling the Canadian economy along for the ride."

"We've had strong earnings for the tech sector for various reasons," Strachan says. "We've had strong earnings on the consumer side. So really that is encouraging because it suggests to us that we can sustain strong equity prices right across the board, but again the key to that is continued earnings growth."