Selling trend returns to markets

Volume has been rather light
this morning, at just 49 million
shares. But those who are trading
are driving prices lower.
Decliners are edging advancers
about 17:14. The volume is just
about evenly split between the
buyers and the sellers.

Once again, golds and oil
stocks are valiantly resisting the
down trade. But they are not
enough to hold back the stronger
selling move in the transports,
cable stocks, utilities and
financials.

Gold stocks such as Barrick,
Dayton and Vengold are
trading heavily, and to the upside.
Poco Pete and Talisman are joining
the worldwide strength in the oil
service stocks. Yet traders seem
to be picking and choosing
individual names in these groups,
rather than bidding up the whole
group.

They are not being nearly as
selective on the downside. The
heavy hitters – Nortel, BCE, TD
Bank, JDS Uniphase and
Seagram are leading the
selling. Interest rate concerns
are again at the forefront,
anticipating some direction one way
or the other from the U.S. retail
sales report due out tomorrow.
There’s just not much good news to
fight the trend right now.

In Montreal stocks have followed
suit. Much of the market is down,
pushing the ME off by 36 points
so far. The VSE has joined the
selling, down two points. Only
Alberta has managed to trade in
the black – it’s up almost nine
points at midday.

In the U.S., the Dow tried a
little rally this morning. But
traders jumped all over it and the
market quickly turned negative.
The Dow is currently off about 85
points. Nasdaq has been even more
enthusiastic, down 36 points. The
S&P is off by 14 points.