Early buying has evaporated, along with trading volume, as traders try and put this ugly week behind them.

The TSE 300 is down five points at midday to 7,412.

Volume is predictably weak ahead of the Labour Day weekend at 39 million shares, favouring sellers 19:17. The split between winners and losers is about even.

On a sector basis, media stocks are weak, as are techs and financials, and golds are giving up yesterday’s gains. Mines are improving today, along with energy stocks and wholesalers. Most other sectors are unchanged.

Stocks opened higher this morning on hope of a bounce back, but reality quickly set in and gains fizzled in the face of few credible reasons to buy.

The banks are dominating trading again today, as they have all week. Bank of Nova Scotia and CIBC are down, Royal Bank, TD Bank and Bank of Montreal are up. Overall, the financial are down slightly.

The techs are down a bit, after a string or poor forecasts from some of the sector’s players. But Nortel Networks is boasting a slight gain today, as are JDS Uniphase and Research in Motion. This is being outweighed by a drop in Celestica, and weakness elsewhere in the group.

Other losers today include Hudsons Bay, Bell Canada International, MDC, Shaw, Hemosol, Nova Chemicals, Baytex Energy and Ensign Resources.

Franco Nevada is leading the golds off recent gains. Much weaker than expected GDP numbers seems to be damping enthusiasm generally today.

On the upside, there are notable gains in energy plays such as Talisman, Precision Drilling, Suncor, Petro Canada and Imperial Oil. Other blue chips such as BCE, Alcan, Abitibi and Inco are trading up too.

In New York, markets rallied heavily on the open, but quickly retreated as buying conviction lapsed. At midday, the Dow Jones industrial average is more or less flat at 9,919. The S&P 500 is down a point at 1,128. The Nasdaq composite index has dropped three ticks to 1,788. Gloomy forecasts from Novellus Systems and Dell Computer are hampering the techs.

The CDNX is down 17 points to 3,007. Volume is quite weak there today at 10 million shares. Techs are soft, while mines are up and oils are flat. Atlantic Systems Group is the top trader there today, down 15% to 51¢ on 410,000 shares.