By James Langton

(July 14 – 13:00 ET) – At midday the TSE 300 is up another 112 points to 10791, another new record. But it’s a thin rally. Volume is average at 66.5 million shares, about 7:3 in favour of buyers. Decliners outnumber advancers by a slight margin.

Techs are up more than 2.5%, utilities are up more than 1% and that’s about it. There’s a little strength in transports, engineers and department stores, too. But eight of the TSE’s 14 groups are down, led by media stocks, rocks, trees and energy are all down. Financials are down slightly, led by the financial management subgroup.

Nortel Networks leads the way as usual, up 2.6% on 2.5 million shares. General enthusiasm for techs, Nortel in particular, is driving the price as is analyst speculation of further acquisitions by the giant.

Following Nortel are JDS Uniphase, BCE Emergis, Sierra Wireless, Descartes Systems and Wi-Lan. Celestica is up strongly too, almost 4%, on the heels of strong results from one of its big customers Juniper Networks in the U.S. BCE is up notably today, as are Rogers and Videotron.

Sikaman Gold, the miner-turned-online mall, is catching some action too, up 4¢ to 28¢ on more than one million shares after announcing five new websites in cooperation with GlobalTV.com.

Downside leaders are techs hit with profit-taking. Exfo Electro, GSILumonics, Hummingbird, GEAC and Cognos are getting slugged. PMC-Sierra is also getting hit with some profit-taking.

Among the old economy stocks, Bowater is leading paper firms down, Weyerhaeuser and Seagram are weak too. Sun Life is leading insurers south. This group is also taking a hit after Standard & Poor’s cut its rating on Fairfax Financial due to its numerous undigested acquisitions and deteriorating operating results.

The CDNX is sliding again today. At midday the index is down 20 points to 3363. Volume is average at 14.5 million shares. Miners and techs are weak, oils are up though. Wavve TeleCommunications is the hot stock, up 12% to $2.40 on more than half a million shares.

In New York stocks are mixed once again. The Dow is off about five points to 10783. Nasdaq though is charging ahead, up 43 points to 4218. The S&P is up six to 1501.

Nasdaq is being led ahead by the aforementioned Juniper Networks and Altera Corp., which also reported strong results. Microsoft and PMC-Sierra are weighing on the Nasdaq though. Johnson & Johnson and Merck & Co. are pushing the Dow down, despite resistance from banks.