North American markets are enduring another session of modest declines on soft trading volumes. At midday, the S&P/TSX composite index is off nine points at 6,443. The ever-present war and terror fears are playing on the market, causing investors to shrug off today’s strong U.S. retail sales data.

Toronto volume is weak at just 79.7 million shares, with the selling swamping the buying by a three to two margin. Market breadth is also negative, with losers outnumbering winners by more than five to four.

Most sectors are down today, but the slides are not as large as 1% in any category. Techs, health care, diversifieds and real estate are all down. Golds are notably higher, up 2.5%, reflecting the market’s nervousness.

Sun Life is the biggest market cap mover today, down more than 2% in heavy trading. Manulife is down a little in active trading, and takeover target, Canada Life, is more or less unchanged.

Fairfax Financial is down another 2.6%, and National Bank has dropped 1.2%. Scotiabank is holding up the sector’s honour, with a modest gain.

Nortel is leading the tech group down as usual. It is off by 3.7% on relatively light volume. Zarlink is down too. Biovail is leading the biotechs lower.

Other losers include Bombardier, EnCana and Rogers Communications. Masonite International is 1.6% lower despite news that it earned US$89.5 million in 2002, up from US$39.5 million in 2001. Net income for the last quarter was US$22.2 million compared with US$13.9 million reported in the same period in 2001.

On the upside, gold stocks are rebounding from yesterday’s sell off. Placer Dome is boasting a 2.6% gain. Barrick has added 1.8%. Glamis is up 5%, and there are notable gains in Eldorado Gold, Goldcorp, Agnico Eagle and Iamgold.

Notable non-gold gainers include ID Biomedical, Hip Interactive and Southwestern Resources Co.

In other earnings news, Nexen reportedly earned $452 million in 2002.

WestJet generated net earnings of $9.3 million in its latest quarter, unchanged from the same period in 2001. For the year, net earnings increased 41.1% to $51.8 million from $36.7 million in 2001.

The small caps have hardly budged in this morning’s trade. The S&P/TSX Venture index is flat at 1,081. Volume is quite weak at 15.1 million shares. The top trader is Ima Exploration, which has gained 4¢ to 74¢ on 776,600 shares traded.

In New York, the same sort of malaise is gripping traders. The Dow Jones industrial average is down 69 points at midday to 7,690. The S&P 500 has dropped seven points to 812. The Nasdaq composite index is down nine ticks to 1,270.