Stocks are rallying on some positive U.S. economic data released Tuesday. At midday, the S&P/TSX composite index is up 28 points to 6,813.

Volume is much improved today at 104 million shares, with the buying ahead of the selling by five to four. For a change, the market breadth reflects exactly the same bullish tone, with winners outnumbering losers by the same margin.

There is strength across a broad selection of stocks, after some decent consumer confidence data was released in the U.S. Traders are being lured out of gold and into riskier sectors such as tech, telecoms and health care. Industrials, consumer plays and financials are up a bit, too.

A couple of the banks are reporting their earnings today, and they are leading the trading action. Bank of Montreal and Bank of Nova Scotia are both up a tiny bit on their news.

BMO Financial Group has reported a 36% increase in earnings from a year ago. Net income was $409 million, compared with net income of $301 million in the second quarter last year. Scotia reported flat net income of $596 million, compared with $598 million last year.

Royal Bank is up 0.6%; Manulife has gained 0.5%; and CIBC is up 0.4%. TD Bank, however, is down 0.5%.

Research in Motion is leading the techs higher, up 3.4% as it recovers some of yesterday’s heavy losses. Nortel is supportive, too, up just 0.2% on decent volume.

BCE has the telecoms higher, up 1.1% in active trading. Biovail is up 3.3%, driving the biotechs up too. There are also notable gains in Telus, Celestica, Oncolytics Biotech, Aeterna Labs, Zarlink Semi, Open Text, Cognos and Ballard Power.

There are also gains in old economy names such as Inco, EnCana, Four Seasons and Aur Resources.

There is weakness today in names such as Barrick Gold, Fairmont Hotels, Forzani, Hudson’s Bay, Endev Energy, Crescent Point Energy and Minefinders.

In New York, the stronger confidence numbers powered stocks higher in late morning. The Dow has gained 111 points to 8,713. The S&P 500 has added 11 ticks to 944, and the Nasdaq is up 35 points to 1545.

The S&P/TSX venture index is bucking the big board trends today, dropping two and a half points to 1,085. Volume is strong though at 20 million shares. The top trader is Goldcliff Resource, up 20% to 18¢ on 1.7 million shares traded.