North American markets are mixed at midday after U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said continuing uncertainty about a possible war in Iraq is hindering economic growth and making forecasts difficult. The S&P/TSX index is up 42 points to 6,486.

Volume remains on the light side at 88.4 million shares, with the buying well ahead of the selling by almost two to one. Market breadth is much narrower however, with winners edging losers by an eight to seven margin.

The financials are leading the way higher with a 1% gain, and golds are notably stronger, up 2.6%.

There is also strength across most sectors, including real estate, healthcare and techs. The only real weakness is in the diversified group.

Amid optimistic talk about bank mergers and some stronger earnings, financials are powering the index higher. Royal Bank is up 1.6% and Sun Life has gained 1.3% in active trading. Scotia, Manulife and National Bank are also up notably.

Property and casualty insurers, Kingsway and Fairfax Financial, are enjoying some very robust gains. Canada Life is a little weaker, bucking the trend.

The earnings news is coming out of Industrial-Alliance Life, which saw fairly strong results. The firm reported that its profit was $100.7 million in 2002, compared with $107.3 million in 2001 on a comparable basis. The results were toward the high end of expectations.

Apart from the financials, techs are stronger, too. Nortel is leading the way with a 1.4% on relatively light volume of less than 7 million shares. Research in Motion is up almost 5%. However, there is weakness in the group coming from Zarlink Semi, ATI, CGI Group and Royal Group Tech.

Other gainers include EnCana, Southwestern Resources, Martin-Rea, Glamis Gold, Kinross, Iamgold and Rogers Communications.

Today’s weak sisters are more news-specific. Shaw Communications is down 2.5% on news that its subsidiary Canadian Satellite Communications have completed a refinancing through a $350 million loan obtained by Shaw from a syndicate of banks co-led by the TD Bank and Scotiabank. The proceeds of the loan were invested by Shaw in preferred shares of Cancom, which used the proceeds of the investment primarily to repay in full the loans outstanding under its $350 million senior credit facility.

Intrawest is down about 2% on news that its second quarter earnings slipped to US$2.78 million. Intrawest incurred a loss from continuing operations of $7.6 million for the past six months compared with a loss from continuing operations of $3.7 million last year.

Other losers include Noranda, Agrium and Shell Energy.

In other business news, George Weston reported 2002 net earnings of $5.05 per share, compared with $4.42 last year. Fourth quarter basic net earnings increased 16% to $1.70 from last year’s $1.46.

IPL reported that its restated net earnings rose to $2.51 million, compared with $2.46 million last year.

The S&P/TSX Venture index is sitting on the fence, staying unchanged at 1,095. Volume is correspondingly weak, with just 15.2 million shares changing hands.

Diadem Resources is the busiest of a boring lot, flat at 5¢ on 543,000 shares traded.

In New York, markets opened a bit higher, but have ground lower as Fed chairman Alan Greenspan delivered his Congressional testimony. Greenspan noted that geopolitical uncertainty is weighing on the U.S. economy, but said there is also a possibility that the economy is weaker than suspected.

The Dow Jones industrial average is down eight ticks at midday to 7,912. The S&P 500 is a point lower at 835. Only Nasdaq composite index is in the black, gaining seven ticks to 1,304.