By James Langton

(May 3 – 13:00 ET) – Stocks dropped at the open and have yet recovered. The Toronto Stock Exchange 300 composite index is down 77 points to 7941, at midday. Volume is average at 78.8 million shares. Down volume is more than twice the up volume, and losers outnumber winners by about eleven to seven.

Almost every sector on the TSE is down, today, including the golds, real estate, merchandisers and financials, as well as the industrials. The energy sector is resisting a slide that is being led by tech stocks. Nortel Networks is off about 3.5% in active trading of 6.6 million shares. This profit-taking is touching other techs such as JDS Uniphase, Exfo Electro and Pivotal.

The weakness in techs is naturally spilling into the tech-exposed financials. CIBC and TD are each down about 2% in heavy trading. Royal Bank is more or less unchanged in heavy volume.

Other losers today include Canadian Tire, Bombardier, Barrick, 360networks, Kinross and Shaw Communications. Shaw reported it has sold its shares in its Nova Scotia-based cable systems to
EastLink, a company owned by Bragg Communications. The deal, which is subject to CRTC approval, should bring net proceeds of approximately $220 million.

On the upside, a few biotechs are making gains, including Biomira and Theratechnologies. Other winners include Magna International, Bell Canada International, BCE Emergis, Primetech Electronics and Creo Products.

A winner in the financial area is Sun Life, which announced $2.6 billion worth of U.S. acquisitions today. Sun Life is up about 5% on the news. The seller, Liberty Insurance from the U.S., is down.

In earnings news, Kingsway Financial Services is reporting record financial results for the quarter ended March 31. Earnings per share tripled to 27¢ as net income increased 187% to $9.2 million

WestJet Airlines Ltd  says net earnings for the first quarter of 2001 were $5.8 million, up 37.4% from 2000. The airline’s earnings per share increased to 1¢ in 2001 from 10¢ during the same period of 2000.

In the U.S., profit taking is the order of the day too. At midday, the Dow JOnes industrial index is down 123 points to 10754. The NASDAQ composite index is off 65 points to 2156. The S&P is down 22 points to 1246. The non-manufacturing National Association of Product Manufacturers Index was also reported sliding to 47.1% in April from 50.3% in March. The number came in below expectations indicating a slowdown scenario.

The small caps appear to be holding up rather well so far today. At midday, the CDNX is down just two points to 3092. Volume is heavy at 20.1 million shares. Miners and techs are up modestly, but oils are down. The top trader is newcomer, Semco Technologies Inc, flat at 20¢ on 2.5 million shares
traded.