By James Langton

(February 25 – 13:00 ET) – Investors don’t like BCE Inc.’s proposed buyout of CTV Inc. The TSE 300 is down 29 points to 9,186 even though buying volume is outweighing the selling 3:2 and market breadth is positive too. Advancers are outpacing decliners 6:5. Volume is comparatively light based on recent trading at 119 million shares.

In spite of this internal market bullishness the reaction to the BCE-CTV deal is knocking the market back. BCE is down 4% on volume of 1.35 million shares on news of the proposed amalgamation of anagrams. The utilities group is down almost 3%, knocking back the industrials almost 2%, thanks to BCE subsidiary Nortel Networks Corp. Nortel is off about 3.5% itself in active trading.

Apart from the utilities and industrials the only other down sectors are the golds and other miners.

The other side of the BCE deal, CTV, is up 23.5% to $38.60 on huge volume of 7.7 million shares. BCE is proposing to pay $38 per share for the broadcaster. It is widely believed that BCE is offering a hefty premium to keep competing bids away for the firm.

Financials, conglomerates and real estate are all up notably today too. But media and software stocks are really where its at this morning. 724 Solutions continues to rocket higher, up 14% to $240. Zi Corp., Certicom, Cryptologic and Open Text are all up strongly. Tundra Semiconductor is also enjoying some good gains.

Mackenzie Financial Corp. is moving strongly this morning, up 11% to $19.30 on strong volume of 2 million shares. Internet gossip suggests that a merger with rival CI Mutual Funds is in the works.

Air Canada is also active, up 10% on 2.4 million shares. Agnico-Eagle Mines is reporting a fourth quarter loss of 9¢ per share, down from last year’s fourth quarter 1¢ per share loss.

The CDNX is back up today, adding 29 points to 3,686. Volume is strong at 51.2 million shares. Energy stocks and technology are leading the gains. Miners are flat. Spider Resources Inc. is the strongest trader, up 10% on 2.3 million shares.

In New York trading has been rather subdued after a wild week. The Dow is hovering just above the 10,000 mark, down 82 points to 10,011. Nasdaq has added 13 points to 4,630. The S&P is down six points to 1,348.