By James Langton
(April 11 – 13:00 ET) – Tech stocks are getting slammed again today. But the old economy is keeping losses moderate at midday. The TSE 300 is down 51 points to 9410. Volume is moderate at 83.5 million shares, about 3:2 in favour of sellers. Declines outnumber advances almost 3:2 as well.
The losses are concentrated in technology, software and biotechs. Familiar tech sell-off targets are getting whipped again, led by Certicom, 724 Solutions, JDS Uniphase, and Descartes Systems. Telecoms are also dropping with the cutting-edge stocks taking the brunt, particularly BCE Emergis and Sierra Wireless. Ballard Power is off 5% and QLT Phototherapeutics is leading the biotechs lower.
Swimming against the tech sell-off are the miners, golds, financials and media stocks. Alcan and Inco are up strongly among the miners. Paper stocks Bowater and Weyerhaeuser are strong. The banks, led by Royal Bank of Canada, CIBC, and Power Corp. are driving the financials higher. Bank of Nova Scotia and Toronto-Dominion Bank are also up in heavy trading. Some sector rotation and positive analyst talk is driving the gains.
In New York similar trends are prevailing through the morning. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 118 points at 11305. Nasdaq is down 62 points to 4126, off earlier lows this morning. The S&P is little-changed, up just two points to 1506.
The small caps are taking a real battering at the hands of its techs. The CDNX index is down 120 points to 4011. Volume is light at 25.4 million shares. The CDNX’s techs are down about 4%, small drops in its miners and energy stocks are also part of the slide. EVEolution Ventures Inc. is a CDNX bright spot, and leading the action, up almost 400% to 99¢ on over 1 million shares traded.