Bulls and bears are battling to a draw Tuesday, leaving the S&P/TSX composite index unchanged at 7,766.

Second-tier economic data isn’t getting much attention and terror fears have ebbed, so traders appear to be returning to corporate news as the main driver of their trades.

Despite the lack of movement in the index, volume is very heavy at 192.9 million shares, with the buying edging the selling by a 21:13 margin. Market breadth favours the bulls too, with winners outnumbering losers 57:50.

On a sector basis, the action is fairly evenly split. There are gains in yesterday’s losers, gold and techs. These sectors are up 2.4% and 2.2%, respectively. Miners and materials are making gains, too.

The weakness is centered in utilities, telecoms and real estate.

ATI is leading the gains in the tech sector, up more than 10%, after it said that its sales may come in double its previous forecast.

Nortel is up 1.3% in active trading, and there are gains in Celestica and Sierra Wireless.

Certicom is higer on news that it has executed an underwriting agreement for a $15.0 million offering, which was heavily oversubscribed. TD Securities Inc. and Research Capital Corporation are the underwriters for the offering. Certicom will use the proceeds from the offering for working capital and general corporate purposes.

One tech stock that’s not doing so well is BakBone Software, which is down 11% on news that it has signed a deal with VantagePoint Venture Partners under which VantagePoint will refrain from selling or distributing 18 million Series A preferred shares beginning today. These shares will be released from lockup in equal installments in the months of February, May and August, 2004.

Royal Bank is a big newsmaker today, too, with word that it is buying UnumProvident Corp.’s business in Canada for almost $500 million. It will become the biggest provider of disability insurance in Canada. The deal is expected to close in March 2004, and is expected to be accretive to earnings. RBC Capital Trust is down 0.2% in heavy trading of 13.3 million shares on the news.

Elsewhere in the financial sector, Scotiabank is up 0.7%, CIBC is up, Manulife is flat, and TD Bank is down 0.7%.

Gold stocks are also recovering from yesterday’s thumping, with Placer Dome and Barrick leading the way. They are up 2.1% and 1.5%, respectively. There are also gains in Wheaton River, and Apollo Gold. Also, South American Gold & Copper is up 1.5¢ to just 11.5¢, but a hefty 27.3 million shares have traded, and Ivanhoe Mines has gained 4.4%.

Energy stocks are generally down. EnCana is leading the way, sliding 1.1%. There is also selling in TransCanada, PennWest Petroleum and Baytex Energy.

There is also weakness in recent gainers such as Alcan, Abitibi, Bombardier, Agrium, TVI Pacific and biotechs such as ID Biomedical, Angiotech, and Neurochem. VSM MedTech and Labopharm are up, however.

In business news, Oncolytics Biotech has been granted a U.S. patent covering the treatment of tumours using modified herpes viruses.

In earnings news, Cominar Real Estate Investment Trust saw its third quarter earnings increase to $7.95 million.

True Energy reported that it earned $2.4 million in the third quarter.

In New York, stocks are also meandering. The Dow Jones industrial average has given up early gains, and is now down just eight points to 9,702.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index has gained half a point to 1,910, and the broader S&P 500 is unchanged at 1,043.

The S&P/TSX venture index boasts the biggest point move, up almost eight ticks to 1,624. Volume is decent at 40 million shares, led by Olympic Pacific, which is up 8¢ to 75¢ on almost 4.2 million shares.