Stocks are moving in a tight trading range Tuesday, unable to establish any convincing direction. At midday, the S&P/TSX composite index is up seven ticks to 6,979.

Volume is on the low side at 104 million shares, with buying edging the selling by a seven to five margin. Market breadth is almost dead even however, reflecting the market’s lack of direction.

On a sector basis, traders are split. While they are cautiously climbing into a range of sectors, including techs, telecoms and consumer stocks, none of these moves are as much as 1%.

On the downside, they are dumping golds, with that group down 2.5%. Materials are down 1%, and the health care group is off 0.7%.

The market’s malaise is reflected in typical top trader, Nortel. Today it is up a mere 1.4% on relatively modest volume of 9.9 million shares. It isn’t getting a lot of support from smaller names either, although Royal Group Tech is up 6% and Descartes Systems is down 3%.

The one area where there is lots of action is the biotechs, with plenty of market cap moving in both directions. There are notable gains in firms such as Hemosol, Gensci Regeneration, and Biomira. Stressgen Biotech has dropped 25% however.

The one firm moving on definitive news is Oncolytics Biotech, which is up 7.6% on strong volume after it reported that it has been granted a U.S. patent for combinations of reovirus strains for the treatment of Ras-mediated tumours.

The financials are trading heavily, too, with Royal Bank and Scotia on the downside, and TD Bank and Bank of Montreal both making gains.

Fairfax is down 6.4% on news that the underwriters of the initial public offering of its subsidiary, Northbridge Financial, have exercised their full overallotment option. Net proceeds to Fairfax from the exercise of the overallotment option were approximately $19 million. BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. and Scotia Capital Inc. acted as co-lead managers of the IPO, the other members of the underwriting syndicate were CIBC World Markets Inc., RBC Dominion Securities Inc. and TD Securities Inc.

Resource stocks are also moving today, with EnCana making gains, Norske Skog, Paramount Energy Trust and Major Drilling are up too. Nova Chemicals is down. But the real selling is in golds such as Placer Dome, down 2.3%, and smaller names, Newmont Mining, Eldorado Gold, Kinross and Agnico Eagle.

In business news, Bombardier is holding its annual meeting today, and its executives are talking up its fortunes. Executive chair Laurent Beaudoin reiterated the founding family’s commitment to the corporation. And new CEO Paul Tellier talked up its restructuring plans and business prospects.

Over at AT & T Canada, the firm noted that its parent firm has committed US$500 million to expand its worldwide infrastructure and services and Canadian customers are benefiting directly from this investment.

In New York, stocks have been on the upside all day, but the trading isn’t showing much direction there either. The Dow Jones industrial average is up 51 points at midday to 9,031. The S&P 500 has added five points to 981. The Nasdaq composite index has gained 10 ticks to 1,614.

The small caps are doing their own thing. The S&P/TSX Venture index has dropped nine points to 1095. Volume is about average at 16.9 million shares. Shear Minerals is the day’s top trader, down 2% on 817,100 shares.