Stocks are hanging onto slight gains at midday, in a deeply divided market. The TSE 300 is up 11 points to 7412, as traders ignore news that Canadian GDP dropped in the third quarter.

Volume is average at 84 million shares, with buyers outpacing sellers by five to three. Losers slightly outnumber winners.

Techs are leading the way higher, along with transportation equipment. There are also modest gains in areas such as mines, golds and energy stocks. Against this, there’s active selling in financials, pipelines and utilities.

Techs and transports are rallying today, with ATI and Bombardier leading the way higher in their respective sectors. Nortel Networks is up modestly in active trading. There are also gains in Cryptologic, Geac and MediaGrif. Against this, JDS Uniphase and Telesystem are both sliding notably.

Forzani Group is up better than 9% on strong earnings. The other gainers include Pangeo Pharma and Manitoba Telecom.

On the downside, Rio Alto is backing off its speculative gain from yesterday.

Banks are sliding, with Bank of Montreal down another 2%. The ranks of losers is also populated by big names such as BCE, Canadian Natural Resources, Quebecor, Tembec, Fording, Air Canada and Transalta.

In earnings news this morning, Forbes Medi-Tech reported a net loss of $19.72 million for the past year, compared with a net loss of $11.32 million for last year. Its fourth quarter loss was more or less flat with last year.

ID Biomedical has incurred a net loss of $2.9 million for the quarter, as compared with a net loss of $1.6 million in the period last year.

In the United States, stocks are also shaking off early economic worries to trade higher. The Dow Jones industrial average is up 38 points to 9,867. The Nasdaq composite index has added six points to 1,939. The S&P 500 is up merely a point to 1,141.

The CDNX is up today, too, gaining 20 points to 3,083. Volume is very strong at 16.6 million shares.

Mines are up, leading the way. Techs and oils are basically flat. Javelin Capital Corp is the top trader, up 33% to 20¢ on almost 2.1 million shares.