Markets are subdued at today, as stocks slide in moderate trading. At midday, the TSE 300 is down 56 points to 7,369.

Volume is on the light side at 72.4 million shares, with sellers outrunning decliners by almost two to one. Losers are outnumbering winners by better than five to four.

Most every sector is down today in a flight to quality. Broad market weakness is coming from the fallout from Enron’s bankruptcy, the precarious Argentine debt situation and the renewal of hostilities in the Middle East. The bad news is outweighing positive news from the U.S. National Association of Purchasing Managers.

Gold is the only group that’s up notably, energy is posting a slight gain. Techs and consumer stocks are notably weaker, as are utilities, financials and mines.

Nortel Networks is leading the techs down today, off about 2%. There’s also selling in Celestica, ATI, JDS Uniphase, GSI Lumonics and Aliant.

Bank of Montreal continues to lead the banks lower. There’s also weakness in blue chip names such as Bombardier, Alcan, Air Canada, Agrium, Canfor, and Husky Energy. Forzani is backing off last week’s gains.

BCE and Bell Canada International are down on news that BCI has unveiled a recapitalization plan. BCE will participate in a rights offering to purchase new common equity in BCI to provide BCI with proceeds of approximately $440 million.

The proceeds, along with other initiatives, will allow BCI to meet its short-term debt obligations. As part of the recapitalization plan, BCE has made certain commitments intended to ensure it retains a controlling ownership in BCI. These commitments will avoid the acceleration of approximately $1.1 billion in BCI debt that is subject to default provisions should a change of control occur.

There’s resistance to the selloff in names such as Kinross, Methanex, Precision Drilling and Aur Resources. There are also gains in GTC Transcontinental, Sobeys, Reitman’s, MDC and Trizec Hahn.

In New York, markets dropped off the bat and have more or less stayed in that range all day. At midday, the Dow Jones industrial average is down 109 points to 9,743. The Nasdaq composite index is off 22 points to 1,908. The S&P is down 11 ticks to 1.128.

The CDNX is also down today. It has dropped 21 points to 3,078. Volume is average at 13 million shares. Oils and miners are leading the way down.

Techs are more or less flat. International Brooks Petroleum is the top trader, down 28% to 21¢ on volume of 542,700 shares.