-By James Langton

(June 7 – 13:00 ET) – Interest rate worries continue to apply a little downward pressure on markets this morning. The TSE 300 is down 54 points at midday to 9555. Volume is light again at 63 million shares, about 6:5 in favour of buyers. Advancers are also edging decliners.

Despite the slight positive bias in the technical indicators the index is down thanks to some selling in the technology sector, golds, rocks and trees. Against this, utilities, conglomerates, and media stocks are showing strength.

BCE is the hot stock of the day, up 2% on heavy volume of 2.8 million shares. Nortel Networks has slipped about 2% on similar volume, despite its announced participation in a new business-to-business venture with IBM and other big tech names.

Joining Nortel on the downside are 724 Solutions, Celestica, Mitel, and Microcell. But the old economy is sliding, too, in the form of names such as Weyerhaueser, Placer Dome, and Corby Distillers.

Trimark continues to trade heavily in light of its merger agreement, it is up 25¢ this morning on 1.8 million shares. C.I. Fund Management is taking a beating, down 3.5% on unusually heavy volume of 1.2 million shares. A couple of huge crosses by National Bank Financial account for most of the trading. Legg Mason shares are on the move again, too, up 3% to $73.80.

Despite the overall tech weakness there are bright spots. Corel is up sharply today, ATI is having a good day, others such as Research in Motion, Wi-Lan and telecom firm, Telus, are also up impressively.

In New York stocks remain stuck in a tight trading range on light volume. Not only are interest rate concerns preoccupying traders, but the landmark Microsoft decision is due out at 16:30 ET. It is expected that the decision will recommend that the firm be broken into two parts, in line with the government’s recommendation. The decision will be appealed either way however.

At midday the Dow is up 12 points to 10747. NASDAQ has gained 18 points to 3774. The S&P 500 is up seven ticks to 1465.

The small caps are unchanged at midday in very light trading, the CDNX currently sits at 3410 on volume of 15.4 million shares. Miner are up, techs and oils are down.TM Bioscience Corp is the most active stock, unchanged at 77¢ on 722,129 shares traded.