By James Langton

(November 21 – 13:00 ET) – Nortel Network’s positive chat with analysts this morning has boosted its stock, and kept the Toronto Stock Exchange in the black this morning despite broader weakness.

At midday the TSE 300 is up 34 points to 8,969. Volume is on the low side at 65.2 million shares, about seven to six in favour of sellers, although it’s closer to three to two if you exclude Nortel. Losers outnumber winners two to one, indicating how the market truly feels.

For what its worth, the new Nasdaq Canada Index is up 12.5 points to 1,012.5 on volume of almost 21 million shares. JDS Uniphase is the Nortel of that new index, accounting for more than 12 million of the shares traded, and it, too, is up on the heels of Nortel’s recovery.

Back on the TSE, only industrials and gold are up appreciably. There’s weakness in real estate, merchandisers, consumers and financials.

Nortel is 5% after a handholding session with analysts that had the firm assuring 40% growth in the optical business. Nortel was perhaps also boosted by news of trouble at rival Lucent.

Following Nortel up is Alcatel, Pivotal, Creo, PRI Automation and biotechs, Biochem Pharma and QLT. BCE is up, as are gold producers Barrick and Placer.

There’s plenty of downside elsewhere, though. Techs including Celestica, BCE Emergis, Royal Group Tech, and Delrina are all down.

AGF has dropped 7.6% in heavy trading, more than 1.5 million shares, after it was announced that it has cut loose about a third of its staff, including fund managers John Sartz and Tony Massie, on the absorption of Global Strategy. AGF is taking the hardest hit, but all the fund companies are down.

Royal Bank is down 1% on 1 million shares, after announcing its net income grew about 22% last year. Alimentation Couche-Tard reported profit of 45¢ a share for the period ended October 15.

Royal Group Tech is down sharply after it missed analyst estimates, reporting flat net income of 60¢ a share for the period ended September 30.

Potash Corp. has announced that Charles Childers is retiring as chairman and he will be replaced by Donald Phillips, a Potash director since 1991.

In New York, stocks are flagging as traders look forward to Thanksgiving and election uncertainty fatigue sets in. The Dow Jones industrial average is up just eight points to 10,471.

The Nasdaq composite has gained just two ticks to 2,878. The S&P 500 is flat at 1,342. Nortel’s rise is supporting the market; Lucent’s trouble is hurting it. Financials are also weak after Merrill Lynch downgraded its outlook for the sector.

The CDNX is down 31 points at midday to 3,073 on light volume of 15 million shares. Techs are weakest, down about 1%, followed by mines, then oils. Wavve TeleCommunications is the top trader, unchanged at 53¢ on volume of 573,688 shares.