By James Langton

(June 12 – 13:00 ET) – Markets have been mellow this morning, although early gains are now surrendering to some selling pressure. The TSE 300 composite index is still up 30 points at midday to 9759. Volume is light at 76.2 million shares, about 7:6 in favour of buyers. Decliners are outpacing advancers by a similar margin however.

Technology stocks, gold and oils are doing the heavy lifting today, against downside momentum in eight of the TSE’s 14 sub-indices.

Nortel Networks is leading techs higher, up more than 2% in active trading. A few others are along for the ride including JDS Uniphase and Cryptologic.

Oil service stocks are having a banner day, up about 6.5%. A return to high flying gas prices is giving these stocks a boost, as is news that supply doesn’t look set to increase anytime soon.

Prudential Steel is one of the days top traders, up 31% on 3.3 million shares, on news that it is merging with Maverick Tube Corp. The deal creates North America’s largest producer of pipe for the energy industry. This morning Texas Hunt Corp. also completed its takeover of Newport Petroleum.

Despite the strength in select areas, there are plenty of losers today. BCE is down 1.6% on more than six million shares, after last week’s heady gains. Teleglobe and Cogeco are down, too.

Software stocks are having a hard time, with names such as Research in Motion and Cognos leading the slide. Other high flying techs are sliding, too, including Creo Products, QLT Phototherapeutics, ATI and Rogers.

In New York stocks opened up, but at lunchtime were sliding into negative territory. Volume is light, with traders waiting for a good reason to trade. The Dow is down 26 points at midday to 10588. Corning Inc. leads the way there after announcing that second-quarter profit will beat analysts’ estimates. Nasdaq is off 94 points to 3781. A profit warning at networker Citrix Systems Inc., after it said second-quarter profit would be about half of analysts’ forecasts, is leading the way down there. The S&P 500 has surrendered six points to 1450.

The CDNX has gained 13 points to 3484. Volume is soft at 14 million shares. Techs and mines are down but oils are propping up the rest of the market on the same news that is boosting the senior oilpatch stocks. Nexttrip.com is the top trader, although the stock is flat at 30¢, it has moved 477,741 shares.