By James Langton

(March 6 – 13:00 ET) – Tech stocks are powering markets higher as bargain hunting heats up. At midday the TSE 300 is up 87 points to 8,187.

Volume is average at 78.5 million shares, but its decidedly positive favouring buyers more than two to one. Breadth is positive too, about 11 to eight in favour of winners over losers.

The split between TSE sectors is even, although techs are sharply higher, up almost 8%, driving the industrial sub-index up 5.6%. Paper stocks are up sharply, too, but most of the other gains are modest. The downside is being led by pipelines, golds and financials.

Bargain hunting tech investors are flocking to Nortel Networks today.Tthe stock is up almost 8% on strong volume of 5.2 million shares. Joining the tech rally are Alcatel, Celestica, Tundra Semi, Mosaid Tech and Mitel.

Descartes Systems is up sharply, almost 25%, on news that operating income in the latest quarter rose to 8¢ a share compared with an operating loss of 8¢ a share last year. Analysts were expecting operating income of 5¢ a share.

Energy stocks are also seeing some strong buying, with Petro Canada, Suncor Energy and Methanex making strong gains. Bombardier is up notably, too.

The downside is coming from a mixed bag of stocks, but the most notable loser is Bank of Nova Scotia, off 7% on heavy volume of almost 4 million shares. The bank announced strong results this morning, but also revealed a notable deterioration of credit quality in the U.S., leading investors to hammer the stock.

Most of the other banks are taking small hits too, except TD. The big insurers are down too, in a generally rough day for financials. This morning the Bank of Canada cut the bank rate by 50 basis points.

Other losers today include Siebel, Alliance Atlantis, Sears, Weyerhaeuser, Wescast and Corus.

In other business news, Cognos Inc. warned revenues for the fourth quarter will be slightly lower than estimated. It said revenue will likely come in between $143 million to $144.5 million, producing net income of $21 million to $22.5 million, or 23¢ a share to 25¢ a share.

In New York the volume remains a bit soft as the big storm finally gets underway there, but stocks are upbeat. The Dow Jones industrial average is up 79 points to 10,642. The Nasdaq composite has gained 92 points to 2,235. The S&P 500 is up 21 ticks to 1,263.

Strength in the Nasdaq continues to come from buyers showing interest in Cisco Systems, Dell, Sun, Oracle, JDS and Microsoft; basically anything that’s been hammered in recent weeks. It’s the same scene at the NYSE where gains are led by EMC, Lucent, Compaq, Nortel, AOL and Corning.

The CDNX is cautiously joining today’s rally, too. It is up 10 ticks to 3,119 on hefty volume of 24 million shares. Mines are leading the way higher, with some support in techs. The top trader is new name Platinum Group Metals, up 10% to 52¢ in its debut, with 3.5 million shares trading.