Toronto stocks are in a modest slide at midday. The TSE 300 is down five points to 7377.

Falling oil stocks tanking are dragging down the rest of the market. Volume is weak again today at 51.8 million shares, with sellers outpacing buyers by 25:22. Losers outnumber winners by nine to seven.

The TSE’s oil and gas sub-index is down 2.5% today, as oil prices slide on the latest news that Russia is not playing nice with OPEC. Paper stocks, conglomerates and merchandisers are sliding too, but everything else is up.

Financials are the strongest group, with modest rallies in pipelines, consumer and industrial products, and media plays.

The action in the energy group is the big story today, but even there the volumes aren’t huge. Pan Canadian Energy is weak on decent volume. Talisman, Husky, Imperil Oil, Alberta Energy, Canadian Natural Resources and Petro Canada are all sliding, too.

Non-energy losers include Inex, Hudson’s Bay and MGI Software.

Financials are leading the way for the bulls today, with banks making gains at midday. Royal Bank is up better than 1%. C.I. Fund Management is also making strong gains.

Techs are a bit higher today, led by Nortel Networks and Celestica. C-MAC, ATI, Exfo Electro, Microcell, CAE, and Geac are all up. There are gains in other names such as Air Canada, Bombardier, Cognicase and Zenon Enviro.

The news flow is pretty quiet today. But, Bombardier says it has received a $140.5 million order for metro cars from Shenzhen Metro Co. Ltd.

In New York, markets closed at 13:00 ET today, and most traders didn’t bother showing up for work anyway. The volume was extremely light.

The Dow Jones industrial average finished up 125 points to 9,959.7. The Nasdaq composite index gained 28 points to close the week at 1,903.. The S&P 500 added 13.3 points of its own, finishing the day at 1,150. Airlines, networkers, techs, biotechs, financials and retailers led the rally on Wall Street today.

The CDNX is up just a point to 3,079 at midday. Volume is on the weak side at 11.8 million shares.

Energy stocks are actually up on the CDNX, as are techs. It’s the mining tocks that are causing trouble. Portrush Petroleum Corp is the top trader, up 3% to 34¢ on 488,500 shares.