Traders are sitting on their hands today, amid a lack of compelling war news, and minimal economic and corporate news.

While there is some speculation that the U.S. may have succeeded in killing Saddam Hussein and his sons, absent credible confirmation traders aren’t reacting to the rumours for a change. Traders are also subdued by the word that OPEC may be cutting production to prop up oil prices.

The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index is more or less flat, down just two points to 6432. Volume is decent at 98.8 million shares, with the buying swamping the selling by about 13 to six. Market breadth is negative though, with losers outnumbering winners by a margin of almost four to three.

The sector action is mixed today, with very modest gains coming in financials and golds. Weakness is evident in real estate, health care and diversifieds.

The financials are holding up the market today with gains in TD Bank, Scotia, Sun Life and Royal Bank. Fairfax Financial and Manulife are up, too.

Bombardier is up as well, almost 1% on strong volume of 18.3 million shares. Air Canada is also bouncing back, gaining about 20% on strong volume of 8.8 million shares.

A mix of notable names are contributing the rest of the gains; among them: Kinross Gold, EnCana, Quebecor, FPI, Descartes Systems, Compton Petroleum and NQL Drilling. Techs are down a little, with Nortel trading flat, and Celestica down 3.5% in active trading. Zarlink Semi is weak, too.

Other losers so far today include yesterday’s gainers Fairmont Hotels and Intrawest. Canadian Tire is down, as are Teck, CoolBrands, Inco and Biovail.

In M&A news, Laperriere & Verreault has finalized its acquisition of the Eimco division of Baker Hughes. The purchase price was lowered by $4.3 million following the acceptance of the closing balance sheet and BHI’s buyback of the Eimco accounts receivable not recovered for a consideration of $13.9 million. Laperriere & Verreault thereby collected a total of $18.2 million part of which will be used to reduce the long-term debt.

Also, Finning International has closed the previously announced acquisition of Matreq Ferreyros SA, the Caterpillar dealership in Bolivia. Meanwhile, 95.7% of Emco was deposited to the offer made by 2022841 Ontario Inc. to acquire all of its outstanding common shares.

In New York, markets are similarly unmoved by the day’s news flow. The Dow Jones industrial average is down just three points at midday to 8298. The S&P 500 is off a point to 879, while Nasdaq is down four points to 1385.

The small caps are showing the most direction. The S&P/TSX Venture index is down five points to 1042. Volume is fairly low there, too, at 14 million shares. Spider Resources remains the day’s top trader, down a penny to 16¢ on 1.8 million shares.