By James Langton

(May 8 – 13:00 ET) – Markets are taking a beating as the techs get slugged. The TSE 300 composite index is down 165 points to 9432. Volume is low at 60.2 million shares, more than 3:2 in favour of sellers. Declines are outpacing advances 11 to 8.

Seven of the 14 Toronto Stock Exchange groups are down, led by the industrials, off 3.5%. Techs, paper stocks, utilities and retailers are getting battered. Golds are down, too.

Nortel Networks is leading the way, down more than 4%. BCE has dropped 3.4% on more than 4 million shares. Weakness in these market leaders are spilling over into JDS Uniphase, BCE Emergis, Sierra Wireless and Descartes Systems.

Abitibi is down 3.2% in heavy trading, leading the paper group south.

The upside is in the real estate sector and consumer products, particularly the biotechs. Biomira has exploded to the upside, gaining 40% on almost 1 million shares, after its breast cancer drug Theratrope received fast track approval status from the U.S. FDA. Plains Energy has gained 32% in heavy trading too after receiving a hostile takeover bid from Precision Drilling Corp.

In New York the tech sector is leading a sell-off, however the old economy stocks have overcome early weakness to trade up. At midday the Dow Jones industrial average is up 12 points to 10590. NASDAQ is down 86 points to 3730. The S&P is splitting the difference, down six points to 1426.

The CDNX is down, too. Its index has dropped 45 points to 3528 on average volume of 18.8 million shares. Techs and miners are down, while oil stocks are making small gains. Southern Rio Resources Ltd. is leading the trade, up 23.5% on 2.9 million shares.