Earnings warnings and a weak U.S. employment report are looming over markets today. Warnings from Advanced Micro Devices, Sun Microsystems and Gateway have snapped the Nasdaq’s three-day winning streak.

At midday, the TSE 300 is down 44 points to 6,856.

Volume is light today at 53 million shares, which is not unexpected heading into a holiday long weekend. Down volume has a three to two edge on up volume. Losers outnumber winners six to five.

On a sector basis, techs are weak, both hardware and software stocks are down sharply. Financials are weak, led by the banks, as are miners.

Buying is concentrated in golds, as traders seek a safe haven before the weekend. There’s also a little strength in paper and printing companies.

Celestica is leading the downside tech trade today, off 3% on more than 2 million shares. It is joined by sharp losses in BCE Emergis, Zarlink, Cryptologic and Cognos.

There’s also some sharp selling in big ticket financials, such as Manulife, Royal Bank, CIBC, Bank of Montreal and Scotia. Canadian Hunter, CAE, Emco and Alcan are down in active trading. Canadian Medical Labs is down 3.5% on news of its proposed bid for DC Diagnosticare.

On the upside, traders are parking some of this week’s hard won profits in Glamis Gold, Goldcorp, Rio Algom and Rio Alto. There are also gains in Air Canada, CP Ships, QLT and Thomson.

In business news, there’s another little M&A deal with Russel Metals Inc buying A.J. Forsyth and Co. Ltd, a Canadian service centre operation. The deal is expected to be slightly in excess of the book value of approximately $24.9 million.

In other news, Domtar has closed its public offering of 40,209,790 common shares at a price to the public of $11.44 per share. The gross proceeds of the offering are $460 million. Domtar will use the net proceeds of the offering to repay part of the indebtedness it incurred for the purchase of four pulp and paper mills in the U.S. from Georgia-Pacific Corp.

In the U.S., today’s weak jobs report soured any good feeling about the economy. At midday, the Dow Jones industrial average is down 60 points to 9,000. The Nasdaq composite index is off 26 ticks to 1,571. The S&P 500 has dropped 10 points to 1,060.

The CDNX is modestly down today, too. At midday, it is off two points to 2,845. Volume is light at 12.5 million shares, with 2 million shares coming from top trader, The Ulysses Group, which debuted unchanged at 20¢. Techs are weak today, miners and oils are up a bit.