After a promising pre-market, stocks are down at midday as broad weakness overcomes spots of strength. The TSE 300 is down 21 points to 7626. Volume is light at 53.3 million shares, and buyers hold a slight edge on sellers. Losers outnumber winners by a margin of about 9:7.

Energy stocks are up nicely following oil price increases, led by Alberta Energy. Transports are gaining too, but that’s about it. Every other sector is pretty much down. The biggest losers include miners, industrials, conglomerates, golds and utilities.

The big losers today are innovators, Research in Motion and Ballard Power. RIM is down about 11% in heavy trading, as investors get nervous about its profit picture. Ballard has dropped 7.5% in much lighter trading, but it’s enough to drag down the engineering sub-sector by more than 4%.

Other notable losers include CP, Transalta, Barrick Gold, World Heart, Shire and Amvescap. Nortel Networks is more or less unchanged at midday.

On the upside, Canada Life is higher in active trading. Precision drilling is making gains, as are the energy income trusts. Vivendi is up on strong results. There are also gains in Maverick Tube, Telesystem International Wireless, Richelieu Hardware, Cryptologic, Canfor and DuPont Canada.

In business news, Cott Corp. reports that it has completed its acquisition of certain Royal Crown assets, from Cadbury Schweppes plc, for approximately $94 million. It also named two senior executives to lead the integration and management teams for the expanded business.

In New York, early market momentum quickly dissipated in a flurry of selling. At midday, the Dow is off 110 points to 10467. Nasdaq has dropped 27 points to 2002. The S&P is down 13 ticks to 1197.

The CDNX is moderately weak at midday today. It is down three points to 3081. Volume is very weak at 10.5 million shares. Techs and miners are up, but oils are down on the small cap exchange. eNblast Productions Inc is the day’s top trader, up 22% to 11¢ on 425,000 shares.