By James Langton

(July 11- 13:00 ET) – Stocks are bouncing back today in lively action. At midday the TSE 300 is up 82 points to 10,317. Volume is on the low-side at 67 million shares, although that appears to becoming the norm in the summer, and it is much stronger than yesterday’s very weak volume. Up volume is more than double down volume this morning. The split between advancers and decliners is almost dead even.

After yesterday’s thumping at the hands of JDS Uniphase, today’s market looks much brighter, every group is in the black, led by the mines, golds, conglomerates, oils and paper stocks. The downside is very sparse, led halfheartedly by chemicals firms.

Nortel Networks is powering higher again today, joined by tech names such as Exfo Electro, Celestica, Microcell and Sierra Wireless. Biotechs are strong too, led by Biovail. Inco, Alcan and Sherritt are all bouncing in the mining group.

Laidlaw continues to bounce, up another 7% to 88¢ on Internet chatter about the wisdom of bargain-hunting the beaten up bus firm.

Bombardier and Abitibi are up again today. The oils are showing some strength on continued optimism over an upcoming OPEC meeting in New York.

On the downside JDS Uniphase has taken another 4.5% hit as shareholders vote with their feet against its takeover of SDL. Mosaid is down almost 8% after recent strong gains. Other losers include QLT, GSI Lumonics, Hummingbird and Nova. 724 Solutions is down notably, too, although a lunchtime appearance on CNBC may well erase those losses this afternoon.

In the U.S. volume has improved, too. Stocks are up across the board after a speech by Fed chair Alan Greenspan suggested that workers are insecure in their jobs despite the tight labour markets. Analysts surmise that wage inflation may not result from tight labour supply because workers in fear of losing their jobs to new technology are keeping their wage demands reasonable.

Positive vibes from that speech, hype over a possible telecom mega-merger between VoiceStream Wireless Corp. and Deutsche Telekom AG, and strength in Intel and Cisco are driving gains. The Dow is up 132 points to 10,778. The NASDAQ composite has added 29 points to 4,008. The S&P 500 is up 10 points to 1,486.

The CDNX is down 26 points to 3,375 on average volume of 16.3 million shares. Tech and mines are down. Saturn Ventures Inc. is the leading the way unchanged at 15¢ on 1.5 million shares.