Toronto stocks are flat at midday. The S&P/TSX composite index is up just 1.63 points to 8,332.07, on volume of 75 million shares.

Gains in technology and energy issues are being offset by declines in the heavily weighted financial group.

Royal Bank shares are down $1.99 to $61.01 after the bank said its third quarter earnings slipped 5% despite growth in loans and deposits.

However, TD Bank is up 83¢, or 1.9% to $44.41, one day after the bank announced its plan to buy a majority stake in a U.S. bank.

Shares in CIBC are up 41¢, or 0.62%, to $66.61 after the bank said it has settled a class action lawsuit with its Visa cardholders for $16.5 million dollars.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index is up 4.18 points, or 0.28%, at 1,519.10.

On Wall Street, U.S. stocks are higher after reports showed U.S. economic growth in the second quarter matched economists’ forecasts and consumer sentiment picked up above expectations in late August.

Trading volume for the day was on track to be the lightest of the year, analysts said. With the Republican National Convention coming up and summer vacations winding down, many traders were already out of the office.

The government said on Friday that U.S. GDP, which measures total output within U.S. borders, expanded at a 2.8% annual rate in the second quarter, down from the 3% pace seen in the Commerce Department’s first snapshot last month.

Meanwhile, the University of Michigan’s final reading of its August index of consumer sentiment fell to 95.9 from July’s final reading of 96.7. But sentiment picked up from the August preliminary number and was above economists’ expectations.

The Dow Jones industrial average is up 15.11points, or 0.15%, to 10,188.52. The S&P 500 has gained 2.27 points, or 0.21%, to 1,107.36. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index is ahead 10.88 points, or 0.88%, to 1,863.80.

Volume is light with investors reluctant to put money in the market ahead of the Republican National Convention, which begins in New York on Aug. 30.