By James Langton
(August 10 – 13:00 ET) – Stocks are dead in the water today, at midday the TSE 300 is essentially unchanged at 10,862. Volume is strong at 75.9 million shares, with sellers taking a slight edge over buyers. Decliners are also outnumbering advancers about 8:7.
On this dead even day half the TSE’s 14 groups are up and half are down. Utilities are the strongest group, although there are also some gains among golds, techs and fund companies. Consumer stocks are leading on the downside, driven by the biotechs. Transports and pipelines are also weak.
Mitel is a hot stock today. It’s up 18% in heavy trading on news that it has produced working prototypes of photonic devices to improve the price and performance the Internet backbone via fibre optics.
Videotron and Rogers are trading heavily again today, both to the upside, after Quebecor raised the stakes in the battle for Videotron yesterday. Quebecor is down sharply.
BCE is leading the utilities higher, while Nortel is up lightly. C-MAC is bouncing back today after it slipped on news of a new offering yesterday. Also up are Cogeco, Mosaid and DaimlerChrysler.
Heritage Concepts continues to lead the volume parade, down 16% today on almost 11 million shares, as online traders wage a war over its prospects. William Resources, the miner turned Internet incubator, is also trading heavily, down 7% on 5.9 million shares, after announcing it’s changing its name to William Multi-Tech Inc.
On the downside, TransCanada is sliding in active trading, as is Bombardier. Energy stocks popped up after oil prices jumped this morning on news that Kuwaiti troops are mobilizing after a sabre-rattling speech from Iraqi president Saddam Hussein yesterday.
The biggest losers include some volatile techs, such as Exfo Electro, QLT, Celestica and GSI Lumonics.
In business news, 360networks says Teleglobe Inc. is buying $100 million of its South American Internet capacity. Thomson Corp. is reporting second-quarter net income of 17¢ a share up from 14¢ last year.
Axcan Pharma Inc. saw its profits jump to 11¢ a share from 3¢ last year, much of the gain coming from a drug rights sale. Uni-Select Inc is reporting second quarter net earnings of 16¢ a share, down from 24¢ in the period last year.
Stocks are similarly morose in New York. At midday, the Dow is unchanged at 10,905. The Nasdaq composite is showing more conviction, down 50 points to 3,803. The S&P 500 is off six to 1,466.
Retailers are losing ground after Gap Inc. issued a profit warning. Drugs are also weak on the heels of Eli Lilly’s patent loss yesterday. The stock has lost about 30% on the news, today Lily is bouncing back a little on bargain-hunting.
There’s also some weakness among the semiconductors, despite the news that Applied Materials beat the Street, it hinted that profit may be slowing. Amazon is up after announcing it will create a co-branded online toy store with Toys ‘R’ Us
The CDNX is weak today, down 23 points to 33,18 on an average volume of 15 million shares. Techs are weakest, down 1.1%, but miners and oils are off. too. Copacabana Capital Ltd. is the hottest trader, up 120% to 44¢ on 1.3 million shares.