By James Langton

(July 26 – 13:00 ET) – The market wants to drop, but Nortel won’t let it. The networking giant is again propping up a weak market singlehandedly. At midday the TSE 300 is up 77 points to 10,944. Volume is average for the summer at 61 million shares. Buyers enjoy a slight edge in volume, but decliners outnumber advancers about 17:12.

Industrials are the only sector up convincingly, thanks to Nortel. Although there is also some buying in tobacco, brewers and insurers. The downside is thick with stocks from the transportation, biotechnology, software, utilities, energy, mines and paper.

Nortel is up another 2.5% on heavy buying of 5.2 million shares, after announcing better than expected earnings and predicting more of the same in the future. Nortel isn’t going it alone this morning however, there is also strength in Clarica and Sun Life. Surefire Commerce is up 9% in active trading. Barrick is up a few ticks, too.

Magna and C-MAC are both up strongly on the news that C-MAC will buy Invotronics, a Magna unit, for an undisclosed sum. The deal is expected to close by late August. Terms were not disclosed.

Somebody is buying lots of Battery Technologies this morning. There’s no news from the firm, but it is up 60% on 3.5 million shares. Retail buying seems to be driving the action, with numerous small trades crossing the tape. TD Waterhouse is the top trader, moving about 1.5 million shares. RBC DS is the biggest buyer, followed by Canaccord, Merrill and Nesbitt. Gossip about a possible deal with Research in Motion seems to be about the only explanation other than irrational exuberance.

On the downside, active losers include Bombardier, Renaissance Energy and BCE. Hot stocks are sliding as jittery investors grab some profits in names such as Exfo Electro, 724 Solutions, Sierra Wireless, BCE Emergis, Ballard Power, and QLT.

Teck reported strong second-quarter earnings of 10¢ a share, up from a loss of 3¢ a share last year. Cominco, which is 45% owned by Teck, boosted results by adding $8 million in profit this year compared with its $3 million deficit for the same period in 1999.

In New York, traders would be happy to have a Nortel to bail them out, instead assorted profit warnings are slugging markets. The Dow is down 111 points to 10,588. The NASDQA has dropped 93 points to 3,936. The S&P 500 is down 16 points to 1,458.

Profit warnings and lame results from BMC Software Inc., Xerox Corp. and LSI Logic Corp. are knocking stocks down across the street. Tomorrow’s release of the second-quarter employment cost index also has some investors edgy. JDS Uniphase is up in anticipation of its addition to the S&P 500 after the close today.

The CDNX is down today, too. Its off 38 points to 3,323 on average volume of 15.6 million shares. All of its major groups are down, led by the energy stocks. Wavve TeleCommunications is the hot trader on the CDNX, down 12% to $2.85 on more than 1 million shares.