By James Langton

(July 25 – 13:00 ET) – Stocks popped sharply on opening this morning, but are trading off earlier highs at midday. The TSE 300 is currently up about 13 points to 10,796. Volume is back today with 73.4 million shares traded. Volume is more than 2:1 in favour of buyers, although decliners are outnumbering advancers 9:8.

Nine of the TSE’s 14 sub-groups are up, led by biotechnology, utilities and transportation. Gains are widespread, but moderate so far.

Resource stocks are in the spotlight for a change today. Transalta, TransCanada, Nexfor, Westcoast Energy and Uniforet are all up, most in heavy volume. Yet Noranda, Renaissance, and Enbridge are down.

Nortel Networks is active as usual today, optimism surrounding the stock drove the initial index spike this morning. At midday its up just 65¢. Nortel is expected to report a second-quarter profit of 15¢ per share later today.

Other gainers include Sierra Wireless, Biovail, MDS and TLC Laser. National Bank is leading the banks up for a change, gaining 1.4% on 1.6 million shares.

On the downside, many of the recent high flyers are selling off. JDS Uniphase, Exfo Electro, BCE Emergis, Ballard Power, GSI Lumonics and Tundra Semiconductor are all down. AGF is down 5% in rather light trading.

In other fund company news Trimark Financial shareholders approved the firm’s takeover by Amvescap last night, and today it is reporting its earnings for the last time. It reported earnings of 30¢ a share, up from 27¢ in the quarter last year.

Steelmakers are reporting earnings this morning. Dofasco Inc. reported earnings of 90¢ a share, up from 77¢ in the same period last year. Algoma Steel Inc. reported 2¢ a share, up from a 51¢ a share loss a year ago.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., which just called off its proposed merger with Canadian National Railway Co., is reporting earnings per share of 60¢, up from 54¢ last year.

In New York traders held their breath while Fed chair Alan Greenspan spoke this morning, but he did nothing to spook or spark trading. At midday, the Dow is up 11 points to 10,696. The NASDAQ composite has gained four points to 3,985. The S&P 500 is up three ticks to 1,467.

Chip stocks are up led by Texas Instruments Inc., Intel Corp. and National Semiconductor Corp. AT&T Corp. is strong, too.

The CDNX is down, off eight points to 3361. Volume is quite light at just 11 million shares. Technology and energy stocks are weakest, but mines are down, too. CGX Energy Inc. is the top trader, down 4% to 23¢ on volume of just 464,175 shares.