Bay Street held on to morning gains Tuesday, while a surprise drop in U.S. consumer confidence took the legs out from under Wall Street.

At midday, the S&P/TSX composite was up by 15 points or 0.18% to 8324.04, while the TSX Venture exchange was off 1.87 points or 0.12% at 1522.43.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average jumped into the black after the opening bell, but fell fast when the Conference Board released U.S. consumer data. The Dow was down 31.19 points or 0.31% at 10091.33, while the Nasdaq fell 14.84 points or 0.81% to 1821.65, and the S&P 500 was off 3.35 or 0.3% to 1095.80.

The Canadian dollar was unchanged at US75.82 cents as a surge in exports boosted Canada’s GDP 1.1% in the second quarter. On an annual basis, GDP advanced by 4.3%, lower than the 4.7% that economists had expected. The year-over-year change was 3%.

In Toronto, the TSX got a lift from gold stocks (up 2.14%) and energy stocks (0.53%), while financial stocks were off 0.04%. Among the bigger movers were Kinross Gold (up 22¢ to $8.05), Barrick Gold (up 49¢ to $26.20), Nortel Networks (off 6¢ to $4.85) and TD Bank (down 12¢ to $43.38).

On Wall Street, stocks were hit by the U.S. consumer confidence numbers, which registered their largest drop since February, declining to 98.2 in August from a revised 105.7 in July. The level of confidence is the lowest since May and was below expectations. More bad news came from the Chicago Institute for Supply Management’s index, which shows expansion in the sector. It came in at 57.3, but markets had expected a reading of 60.0.

Markets are also being held back by thin volume resulting from many traders taking the week off as the Republican National Convention takes over New York.

There was some good news: oil price continue to back off from its peak at US$49 a barrel earlier this month. Crude oil for October delivery was down 48¢ to US$41.80 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after dropping 90¢ Tuesday.

In overseas trading, the Nikkei Stock Average of 225 issues closed at 11,081.79 points on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Tuesday, down 102.74 points, or 0.92%, from Monday.

London’s Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-share index was down 19.5 points at 4,470.6.

France’s CAC 40 was off 1.06 per cent while Germany’s DAX declined 1.22%.