By James Langton

(August 14 – 13:00 ET) – Stocks are bouncing this morning, led by bank and technology issues. The TSE 300 is up 116 points at midday to 10,905. Volume is strong for a Monday at 63.4 million shares. The volume is decidedly positive, about 3:1 in favour of buyers, although the decliners slightly outnumber advancers.

Ten of the TSE’s 14 groups are up at midday, although most of the gains are very modest. Strength in financials, techs, and energy service stocks are leading the way. The weakness is centred in gold, utilities and miners.

The top traders are almost all on the upside. Nortel Networks is leading the way, up 1.6% on 2.4 million shares. A number of the usual suspects are following along, including JDS Uniphase, Alcatel, Research in Motion, Sierra Wireless and QLT.

The banks are moving up aggressively, too. TD, CIBC and Scotia are up 2.6%, 3.6% and 1.8% respectively in heavy trading. Manulife is up 4%. Financials are generally setting new highs on both sides of the border on investor sentiment that the round of interest rate tightening may be over.

The losers this morning are an eclectic mix of stocks from Exfo Electro, Cryptologic and Biovail to Microcell, which announced poor results, WestJet and Weyerhaeuser.

Heritage Concepts is the top trader on the Street once again, up 21% on almost 13 million shares.

Winspear Diamond is popping, too, after it agreed to be acquired by De Beers for $305 million in cash. De Beers raised its bid for Winspear from $4.25 a share to $5 and extended the offer to August 25.

In the U.S. a typical Monday is at play, light gains in light trading. The Dow is up 10 points to 11,038. The Nasdaq composite has gained eight points o 3,798. The S&P 500 is up three to 1,475.

Retail stocks are leading the Dow up after an analyst from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter called for retail to rally as the Fed tightening cycle ceases. Semiconductors also bounced on analyst bluster. Chris-Craft Industries is jumping on its acquisition by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Most traders though are still at the beach or on the golf course.

The CDNX is up 12 points to 3.352 in very light trading, a mere 10 million shares have changed hands so far. Miners are leading the way, followed by energy stocks. Techs are flat. USA Video Interactive is the top trader, up 8% to $4.80 on just 216,833 shares.