Another day of conflicting trends leaves a market that’s almost flat at midday.

The TSE 300 is down six points to 7,460. Volume is on the light side at 73.5 million shares, with sellers outpacing buyers by four to three. Losers have a five to four edge on winners.

On a sector basis, there is a bounce back in resource stocks today, with mines, golds, energy and paper plays all higher on bargain hunting.

However, a weak sales forecast from cellphone giant Nokia Oyj has hit the techs and telecoms worldwide. Also, weaker consumer confidence data is the United States is taking the steam out of merchandisers.

Nortel Networks is leading the techs lower. It is joined by Celestica, Research in Motion, JDS Uniphase, CGI Group and Bell Canada International. Cell-Loc is down after reporting weak earnings. But there are gains in Leitch Techology and Descartes Systems.

The weaker consumer numbers and uncertainty expressed by the Bank of Canada is hurting financials. The banks are down, led by CIBC and Bank of Montreal. Royal Bank is flat.

There’s also weakness in Air Canada, Magna International, Norske Skog and Theratechnologies.

On the upside, stocks that have been beaten down is recent days are bouncing back a bit. Gains are evident in Bombardier, Inco, Fairmont Hotels, Abitibi, Sherritt, Placer Dome, Agnico Eagle, Teck and Enbridge.

In New York, markets are taking the Nokia news and consumer numbers a bit harder, although stocks are well-off their intra-day lows at midday. Still, the Dow Jones industrial average is down 112 points to 9,870. The Nasdaq composite index has dropped 20 points to 1,921. The S&P 500 is down 11 ticks to 1,147.

The CDNX index is down 16 points to 3,038. Volume is strong at 15 million shares.

Energy stocks are leading the decline with techs weak too. Miners are flat. Anitech Enterprises Inc is the top trader, up 8% to 27¢ on more than 1.2 million shares.