By James Langton

(March 10 – 13:00 ET) – Markets are up again today as the rally in techs has hung in for the most part and strong economic news from this morning’s employment report was read as a positive. The TSE 300 has added 70 points to 9,483 at midday. Volume is average at 112.7 million shares and more than 2:1 in favour of buyers. Advancers are outpacing decliners about 23:19.

Paper stocks are leading the charge, up almost 2%. Utilities, industrials and merchandisers are strong too. Mines and golds are the only real source of weakness at this point.

BCE Inc. is the big gainer among the utilities, up $2.30 on 1.2 million shares. It is joined by Sierra Wireless, Microcell and MDSI Mobile Solutions, all experiencing strong upside moves. Descartes Systems is up about 10% in active trading. Ballard Power can do no wrong either — after announcing bigger losses for 1999 than 1998, the firm’s stock rose 4.5%. It blamed the widening losses on its favourite pastime, increasing R&D spending.

The big downside movers come from the volatile tech stocks too, headed by 724 Solutions, JDS Uniphase, Certicom and BCE Emergis.

In business news, Thomson is signalling its move into the Internet world with a $45 million deal for Wave Technologies. Royal Bank says it will one day bid US$115 million for Chicago-based mortgage broker Prism Financial Corp. And Baltimore-based money manager Legg Mason is buying Perigee for 5.2 million exchangeable shares.

Despite the emergence of an actual deal rather than just gossip, the Canadian financials are rather quiet. Mackenzie is unchanged in active trading. C.I. is the strongest mover, up more than $1, although volume is only moderate.

With the strength in technology back, the CDNX is roaring ahead too. The index is up 72 points to 4,424 so far today. Volume is very strong at 71.1 million shares. Technology shares are leading the gains, up about 2.4%. Unlike the TSE, miners are up and energy stocks are down. Oriole Systems Inc. is the hottest trader, down 4% on 2.8 million shares.

In New York, stocks are rather uninspired. The Dow is off about 43 points to 9,967, back below 10,000. Nasdaq meanwhile is holding the 5,000 level, virtually unchanged at midday at around 5,050. The SS&P is down 5 points to 1,397.