By James Langton

(February 19 – 13:00 ET) – Toronto stocks are struggling back from Friday’s plunge in relatively light trading this morning.

Bargain hunting in Nortel Networks is leading the TSE 300 higher. At midday the composite index is up about 15 points to 8,408.

With U.S. traders off celebrating their presidents, volume on the TSE is just 55.9 million shares.

Buyers are outpacing sellers more than two to one, thanks to Nortel volume. Breadth is much more neutral, although advancers are marginally edging decliners.

Industrials are the only group showing any strength, with light support from energy and paper. Eight of the TSE’s sub-indices are down, led by conglomerates, merchandisers, gold and real estate.

Nortel is leading the way up with buyers looking for some cheap stock in the firm that has plunged from a high of $124 last year to trade in the $30 range. Today the stock is up 3% to $32 on more than 7.2 million shares.

Traders will be watching Nortel CEO John Roth’s efforts to restore his shattered credibility at a luncheon speech to the Canadian Club in Toronto.

A few of the names bludgeoned by Nortel on Friday are bouncing back today, too. JDS Uniphase, C-MAC, Sierra Wireless, and Pivotal are climbing.

Also up is takeover target Cypress Energy, gaining 10% on 6.3 million shares. All the takeover action in the oil patch, along with stronger commodity prices, has other energy names up, including Alberta Energy, Bonavista Petroleum, Encal Energy and Gulf Canada.

Another winner today is Lorus Therapeutics. The stock is up more than 21% this morning on the news that the company’s pancreatic cancer drug Virulizin has achieved “orphan drug” status in the U.S.

Another couple of heavy traders are NAME Inc. and itemus Inc. NAME is up 64% on 1.6 million shares on news that itemus will take it over for about $45 million in stock. itemus is down 7% on 1.1 million shares.

Today’s losers include techs such as Celestica and Ballard Power. Weston is also down a bit after it announced a US$1.8 billion takeover of Unilever’s baking lines. Loblaws is down on the news as well.

In other news, Petro-Canada is delaying the start of its joint venture Terra Nova project until the fourth quarter. Oil production is now expected to begin late this year. Total preproduction capital cost could go up as much as 15% as a result, from its already lofty $2.5 billion level.

Trading is quiet on the CDNX, despite heavy action in a couple of stocks. The CDNX is down two points to 3,180.

Volume is soft at 16.6 million shares. Techs and mines are down, oils are up. Hixon Gold Resources Inc is dominating volume, up 233% to 7¢ on volume of 5.6 million shares as it resumes trading. Genoil Inc continues to trade heavily, up 15% to 15¢ on 1.3 million shares.