Tech stocks are weighing on the market Thursday, paring yesterday’s hefty gains. At midday, the S&P/TSX index is down 38 points to 6,344.

Volume is on the light side at 82.5 million shares, with the down volume swamping the up volume by about seven to four. Market breadth is just about evenly split between winners and losers, however.

Most sectors are pulling back a bit today after some weak economic data threw cold water on U.S. recovery aspirations. Techs and telecoms are down notably, dropping almost 4% each, as profit concerns weigh heaviest there, particularly in the semiconductor space. There’s also weakness in energy, financials, and utilities. Real estate is up significantly though, and health care is up a bit, too.

Telus is leading the way down, dropping more than 7%. Nortel Networks is down almost 7% on strong volume of almost 13 million shares. There’s also some weakness in Celestica, ATI and Ballard Power. But BCE is up about 2%.

Manulife is leading the financials down, dropping 1.4%, and overwhelming some strength in banks, CIBC, Scotia and Royal Bank.

There’s also weakness in names such as Teck, Potash, Four Seasons and Kinross.

On the upside, there’s buying in Falconbridge, Dofasco, Alcan, Oiltec Resources, Investors Group, Noranda, Shaw and QLT.

Fairmont Hotels is up 4% on news that renowned Saudi investor, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, has exchanged his 16.5% interest in the Fairmont management company, for shares of the public company. As a result, the prince will acquire approximately 4% of FHR’s outstanding shares. Separately, FHR announced that, in light of the drop in the market value of share prices in the lodging industry, it intends to actively repurchase its shares in the market over the next several months.

In earnings news, Finning International had record second quarter net income of $34.7 million, up 20.1% over the second quarter of 2001.

Cara Operations reported net earnings for the quarter increased to $28.6 million, including a gain of $17.8 million from the sale of most of the assets of Cara’s health care related business. Excluding the gain, net earnings were $10.8 million, compared with $8.1 million last year.

Mullen Transportation saw its net income slump to $2.6 million from $6.6 million in its latest quarter.

In New York, the scene is similar to Toronto with the broader market rallying a bit, while techs are weak. At midday the Dow Jones industrial average is down 10 points to 8,180. The S&P 500 is down five ticks to 838. The Nasdaq has dropped 47 points to 1,243.

The small caps are recovering a bit today, with the S&P/TSX Venture index up more than four points to 1,026. Volume is on the weak side at 10.3 million shares. BPI Industries is the day’s top trader, down 5% on 508,000 shares.