Early hopes for a rally today has dissipated. At midday, the TSE 300 is down 59 points to 7412.

Volume has been huge today, more than double a typical day, with 198.5 million shares changing hands. However, 114 million shares have changed hands in Bell Canada International, thanks to massive cross trading by CSFB.

Without these trades, the day would actually be a rather light one. Forgetting BCI, selling volume is ahead of the buying by about five to three. Losers are outnumbering winners by 11 to seven.

The weakness is widespread today, with energy stocks lagging, techs are down notably, as are conglomerates, financials and media stocks. There’s not even any refuge to be had in golds today.

There are gains in food stores, on reports of stronger prices. Steels and utilities are up a bit, too.

Bombardier is the big loser today, down 5% on strong volume of 4.2 million shares. Traders continue to do battle over the transport firm’s future.

Energy stocks are weaker on news of Husky Energy’s talks with PetroChina, and lower oil prices thanks to word that Russia may be opening the spigots on production soon. Westcoast Energy is weak on strong volume, and Husky is down 6.5%.

Nortel Networks is barely lower today, but there is tech weakness in Cognos, Wireless Matrix and Coolbrands. Rogers Communications has dropped 3.2% so far today.

TD Bank is leading the financials down, followed closely by Royal Bank.

And the golds are giving back some of their gains, too. Barrick is down about 0.4%, and there are notable losses in TVX Gold and Meridian Gold. Placer Dome is bucking the trend, up a bit on strong volume.

Placer is joined on the upside by Co-Steel, which gained 44% on news of its latest earnings. There are also gains in Hudson’s Bay, Mosaic Group, Richelieu Hardware, TVA, Royal Group Technologies, Trilon Financial and Bennett Enviro.

On the news front, Intertape Polymer Group has filed its final prospectus for a public offering of 5.1 million common shares at $15.50 per share for a total of $79.05 million. The offering is being completed through a syndicate of underwriters led by HSBC Securities (Canada) Inc. The net proceeds of the public offering will be used to partially repay indebtedness to Intertape’s banking syndicate and indebtedness to holders of its senior notes.

In earnings news, Alberta Energy earned $823.8-million in 2001. Cash flow and earnings in 2001 were the second highest in the company’s history.

Call-Net Enterprises has released a comprehensive recapitalization proposal, negotiated with its major noteholders and shareholders, that would reduce Call-Net’s debt by more than $2 billion.

In New York, markets have given back most of their early gains, as traders have been unable to convince themselves to follow through on a full-fledged rally.

The Dow Jones industrial average is still up 25 points to 9,770. The Nasdaq composite index is now down 12 points though to 1,738. The S&P 500 is down four points to 1,079.

The S&P/CDNX Composite Index is modestly weaker today too, dropping two and a half points to 1,114. Volume is on the light side there too at 15.8 million shares. Nstein Techs inc. is the top trader, up 22% to 33¢ on 1.13 million shares.