Markets are overcoming their opening jitters and are trading a little higher at midday. The S&P/TSX index is up 11 points to 6491. Volume is weak at 65.5 million shares.

The gold sector has center stage today, as part of general autum trend toward safe-haven buying. There are also gains in health care, materials and real estate.

Techs are down on profit concerns. Consumer stocks have dipped too.

Gold miner Crystallex is leading the way higher, today, gaining more than 30% on news that it has won the fight over the Las Cristinas mine. Barrick and Placer Dome are powering the group higher on safe haven buying. Several smaller golds are gaining today, too, including Kinross, Royal Gold, Goldcorp, Iamgold, and Vistagold. The price of gold itself is up on jitters over war between the U.S. and Iraq. Speculation of more aggressive air strikes by the U.S. is feeding those jitters.

Energy stocks are holding a slight gain, with Northgate Exploration and BelAir Energy higher at midday. There are gains in a variety of other names including Wireless Matrix, Coretec, Neurochem, ACD Systems, Paladin Labs, Cognicase and Richelieu Hardware.

On the downside there’s a mixed bag of losers, led by Teck Cominco, which has dropped 12%. Bombardier is down, as is TD Bank and Bank of Montreal.

Nortel Netorks and Celestica is leading the tech group down, due to profit worries in that sector.

There is also selling action in Lassonde Industries, Dundee Wealth Management, Inscape, FPI, Zi Corp., Air Canada, World Heart, Cryptologic and Norske Skog.

The S&P/TSX Venture index is holding a small gain too, up three points to 1007, on the strength of its golds. Volume is stronger there at 15.7 million
shares. The top trader is Ascot Energy, up 2.5% on more than 2 million shares traded.

Gold stocks are also faring well in New York, but that action is not enough to bail out a broader market sell-off. The Dow Jones industrial average down 55 points to 8,371. The Nasdaq composite index is off 17 points to 1,278. The S&P 500 is down six ticks to 888.