Early hope for a rally has evaporated in another lazy day of trading ahead of the long weekend.

At midday, the TSE 300 is down 17 points to 7,739.

Volume is light at 49.7 million shares, with sellers outnumbering buyers five to four. Losers hold a seven to six edge on winners.

In keeping with the modest action, most of the sector moves are moderate. Techs are down about 1%, as are paper stocks and publishers, but there aren’t any big losers out there.

Nor are there many major winners. Golds are up, as are odd sub-sectors such as food stores and transportation equipment. But big sector trends, there aren’t any.

Techs are weak as hopes for profit improvements have disappeared. Nortel Networks is leading the way down, off just 0.8% in active trading.

Yesterday’s disaster du jour, Descartes Systems, is back for more of the same today. It is down another 12%. Yesterday’s tech winner, Research in Motion, is being reconsidered today. It is off 7%. Exfo Electro, Creo Products, Open Text, Zi Corp. and Celestica are all down, too.

Other notable losers include CIBC, Hemosol, Slocan Forest and CanWest Global.

On the upside, the big cap movers include Suncor Energy, BCE, CP and Bombardier, but all their gains are small. The rest of the BCE family is up today, including BCE Emergis and Bell Canada International. Other gains are coming from FPI, Goldcorp, Meridian Gold, Siebel, Ballard Power and Gildan Activewear.

On the news front, Alliance Atlantis Communications has made a public offering of 8 million class B non-voting shares at $17.30 per share. Closing is scheduled for August 8. It has also granted to the underwriters an option to purchase up to 1.2 million additional shares. The net proceeds of approximately $131.5 million will be used to repay indebtedness under its committed revolving credit facility.

Merrill Lynch & Co. served as the book running lead manager of the underwriting group with Goldman, Sachs & Co. as co-lead manager and RBC Dominion Securities and TD Securities (USA) Inc. as co-managers. Other members of the underwriting syndicate are BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., Griffiths McBurney & Partners, HSBC Securities (Canada) Inc., Research Capital Corporation, Scotia Capital Inc., and Thomson Kernaghan & Co. Limited.

In New York today, stocks are shaking off early optimism. The U.S. jobs report was better than expected, but that soon made traders realize it may limit future rate cuts, and the market sold off in response.

Weaker than expected NAPM data also added to the gloom. As a result, at midday, the Dow Jones industrial average is down 77 points to 10,474. The Nasdaq composite index has dropped 32 points to 2,055. The S&P 500 is off 11 points to 1,210.

The CDNX is again bucking the trend, up 20 points to 3097. Techs and mines are leading the way higher, with some support from oils. Volume is light at 13.1 million shares.

Scimitar Hydrocarbons is the top trader, flat at 35¢ on more than 2.5 million shares traded. It announced a private placement for up to a total 3.5 million common shares for total proceeds of up to $1,225,000.

Insiders of the corporation will subscribe for all of the common shares to be issued. Jennings Capital Inc. will act as agent in respect of the private placement. The net proceeds will be primarily used to finance the capital program of Scimitar’s wholly owned subsidiary, Scimitar Production Egypt Ltd.