Stocks resumed their summer swoon on light volume today. At midday, the TSE 300 is down 37 points to 7,590.

Volume is weak at 56.9 million shares, favouring sellers almost two to one. Losers are outnumbering winners better than four to three.

Financials, golds and consumer products are the only groups up appreciably at midday. Biotechs are singlehandedly driving consumer stocks up.

But the upside is quite thin in the face of notable declines in miners, techs, transports, media stocks and energy plays.

Nortel Networks is down another 2.6% in active trading today, after Lucent Technologies reported a wider than expected losses. The company plans to beat Nortel in the layoff department, adding another 20,000 to the unemployment line on top of the 20,000 it has already cut.

Nortel is joined on the downside by JDS Uniphase, Microcell, Research in Motion, GSI Lumonics and Inscape. Even Celestica is down after unveiling a US$10 billion deal with Lucent.

Alcan is leading the miners down. It is off almost 4% in heavy trading. Shire Pharma is tanking the biotechs, dropping 9.4% today. Other losers include CP, Calpine Canada, Bombardier, Ballard Power, West Jet, Cameco, and DuPont.

Sun Life is the strongest stock on the upside, gaining 0.9% in heavy trading. It is pushing the insurers, and by extension, the financials higher too. Royal Bank is leading the banks higher.

Other winners include Centrefund Realty, Stackpole, QLT, Hummingbird and Placer Dome. Cryptologic is up 4.6% after announcing its quarterly results.

In other earnings news, BCE Emergis is reporting a net loss of $90.6 million, or a loss of 96¢ a share for the second quarter ended June 30, compared with a loss of $82.1 million or 88¢ a share for the corresponding period in 2000.

PRI Automation Inc. is seeing a net loss for the quarter of $14.2 million, or 56¢ a diluted share, compared with net income of 38¢ a share in the third quarter of fiscal 2000.

In other business news, Thomson Corp. has increased its commercial paper program from $500 million to $1 billion. The dealers involved in the Thomson commercial paper program are CIBC World Markets Inc., RBC Dominion Securities Inc. and TD Securities Inc.

In New York, markets are trading lightly while they listen to U.S. Federal Reserve board chairman Alan Greenspan before the Senate Banking Committee. He’s not doing much to dispel the gloom that settled in after weak reports from Lucent and Amazon. At midday, the Dow Jones industrial average is off 132 points to 10,292. The Nasdaq composite index has dropped 21 points to 1,967. The S&P 500 is down 15 ticks to 1,176.

The CDNX is flat at midday, standing pat at 3,078. Volume is light at 11.8 million shares. Mines are up, as are techs and oils. Starcore Resources Ltd is the top trader, up 8% to 14¢ on volume of 724,150 shares.