Stocks are struggling higher Thursday. At midday, the S&P/TSX composite index has managed a 14 point gain to 6,756.

Volume is fairly robust at 107 million shares, with the buying leading the selling by a margin of 11 to eight. Market breadth is close to even, with winners edging losers 12:11.

Most sectors are moribund today, with nothing moving as much as 1% in either direction. There are modest gains in utilities, consumer staples and financials. Small downside moves are evident in industrials, health care and energy stocks. But there simply isn’t much broad momentum either way.

TD Bank is leading the financials higher today, up 2.4% on strong volume of 1.5 million shares. It is joined by a 1.5% gain in CIBC, and a 1% move in Bank of Montreal. However, Scotiabank is down, as is National Bank. Investors Group is notably higher in the fund group, up 2.3%.

Nortel is powering the tech trade this morning, up another 0.7% on 8.1 million shares. There are also heady gains in Infowave Software, Telesystem International Wireless and GSI Lumonics. Ballard Power is down 4% in active trading. Biovail is pushing the biotechs up, with a 1.6% gain today, but Neurochem is down.

Apart from the techs, there are also gains in old economy names such as Barrick, TransCanada Pipelines, Tusk Energy and Crescent Point Energy. However, there is weakness in energy names such as Canadian Natural Resources, Northgate Exploration and Paramount Resources.

Air Canada has dropped 3.3% today. And, there is weakness in transports such as CP Rail and CN Rail. Other losers include BCE and Nova Chemicals.

In earnings news, Power Corp. reported that its net earnings for the first quarter were $167 million, compared with $171 million in 2002.

Cequel Energy earned $11.2 million in the first quarter.

Zi Corp. said its first quarter net loss was reduced to $1.7 million, from a net loss of $5.7 million for the year-earlier period.

In New York, stocks are making modest gains despite some shockingly weak producer prices report released this morning. The Dow Jones industrial average is up 37 points at midday to 8,685. The S&P 500 has added four points to 943. The Nasdaq composite index is ahead by seven points to 1542.

The S&P/TSX Venture index is down a point to 1,070. Volume is average at 15.7 million shares. The top trader on the day is Belvedere Resources, which has dropped a penny to 50¢ on 1.8 million shares.