Markets are generally weaker today as traders face the uncertainty of ongoing military action by the U.S. and the continued threat of future terrorist attacks against the West. At midday the TSE 300 is down 37 points to 6857. Volume is strong at 99.1 million shares. Thanks to an M&A deal, buying is outweighing the selling by about 2:1. But market breadth is generally more negative as decliners have a 9:7 edge on advancers.

Gold is down sharply today, as are techs. There’s also weakness in miners, real estate, pipelines, financials, conglomerates and merchandisers. There’s some strength in energy stocks and biotechs drive the consumer group higher.

The big trade today is takeover target, Canadian Hunter, which is up 13% with 35 million shares changing hands on news of a US$2.1 billion takeover by Burlington Resources. This is also driving heavy, positive trading PanCanadian Energy, Petro Canada, Anderson Exploration, Rio Alto Exploration, and Alberta Energy. There are also gains in Compton Petroleum, Ensign Resource Services, Paramount Resources, Bonavista and Penn West.

Celestica is leading the techs down, off more than 5% on about 840,000 shares traded. There’s also weakness in Nortel Networks, JDS Uniphase and CAE.

Golds are weak at the hands of Placer Dome. Royal Bank is leading the financials down. Alcan is off, as is Ballard Power, Air Canada, Kingsway Financial, Fording and Brookfield.

There’s also a bit of news out of Placer Dome, with it signing an agreement with Phelps Dodge Corp. to further develop and commercialize proprietary technology for the extraction and recovery of gold, silver, copper and other co-products from precious and base metal concentrates.

In other news, Royal Group Technologies Ltd. says its sales in September were up by 1% compared with the same month last year, bringing overall sales growth for the fourth quarter to 9%. Vic De Zen, chairman, president and CEO, said sales were weak for a short period after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, but sales activity has picked up considerably. De Zen commented that, “management is comfortable with the range of analysts’ expectations for the fourth quarter.” Analysts’ expect earnings in the range of 49¢ to 53¢ per share.

At midday, U.S. markets are grinding lower too on modest volume. The Dow is down 18 points to 9050. Nasdaq has shed 30 points to 1576. The S&P is down five ticks to 1057. Techs are weak, cyclicals are mixed and defensive groups are weak.

Most other sectors are weak or mixed. Techs have been lackluster due to the start of earnings season. All eyes will be on Motorola (MOT 16.85 -0.54) as the handset and semi giant reports after the bell.

The CDNX is weak today too dropping 20 points to 2838. Volume is average at 15 million shares. Techs are leading the way down, with weakness in miners, and even a slight drop in energy plays. Photochannel Networks is the top trader, flat at 5¢ on 1.2 million shares.