Markets opened to the upside today on a series of mixed earnings reports, and are hanging onto modest gains at midday.

The TSE 300 is up about 24 points to 7,583.

Volume is on the light side at 60.5 million shares, with buying outpacing selling by about 15 to 13. Conversely, the losers outnumber the winners 11 to 10.

Miners, energy and transports are leading the way higher today. Techs, banks and pipelines are making modest gains, too. Software stocks are weak though, as are biotechs, media and golds. Earnings sentiment seem to be the big driver today.

BCE’s earnings results are being dissected by traders today, and the market is voting on its various components with its feet. BCE Emergis is one of the big losers, down 15% in active trading, after losing more than $400 million. BCE itself is up almost 1%, and Bell Canada International is down more than 3%.

The big gainer today is Alcan, which is up more than 5% in strong trading. Traders appear to be reacting to yesterday’s upbeat forecast from the firm.

Teck is making strong gains, as is Hurricane Hydrocarbon, CP Rail and Western Oil Sands. Bombardier is also bouncing back strongly after a couple of rough sessions.

Techs such as Nortel Networks and Celestica are leading that group higher. Descartes Systems, Solectron and Datamirror are strong too. CGI Group and Cognos are weaker.

Banks are strong too today. TD Bank is leading the way higher in active trading. Bank of Nova Scotia is up a bit, too.

Biovail is leading the sell off in biotechs, down about 5%. There’s also weakness in Westport Innovations, CAE, Northstar Energy and Glamis Gold.

In business news, Corby Distilleries’ net earnings amounted to $9.6 million for the three months ended November 30, compared with $8.8 million for the corresponding period last year.

In New York, strong opening trading has mostly dissipated at midday. The Dow Jones industrial average has given back its early gains and is now up two points to 9,716. The Nasdaq composite index has added 22 points to 1,904. The S&P 500 is six points to the good at 1,125.

The S&P/CDNX Composite Index is the only market loser today, down a couple of points to 1,092. Volume is average there at 18.4 million shares. Cantech Ventures is the top trader, up 36% to 19¢ on almost 1.9 million shares traded.