By James Langton

(March 13 – 13:00 ET) – Markets opened down this morning, clawed back to unchanged, but are sliding again as the selling resumes. The TSE 300 is down about 70 points at midday to 7,860.

Volume is weak at 62.4 million shares, as buyers continue to sit on the sidelines. Market internals are desperately weak, with volume almost three to one in favour of sellers, and losers outnumbering winners more than two to one.

Every TSE sub-index is down, as investors seem to be throwing up their hands on equities altogether. The notion of gold as a safe haven was short-lived, it is off 3% today, as are mines. Losses are heaviest in old economy sectors, including paper, oil and gas services and favourite whipping boy, technology.

Nortel Networks continues to take a thumping, after it was revealed yesterday that it lost a possible $500 million contract with BT CellNet to Marconi plc. The stock is down another 2.6% today on heavy trading of almost 6 million shares. A few techs are sliding alongside, including C-MAC, Celestica and Hummingbird. Nortel’s old parent BCE is down notably, too.

Other heavy losers include such names as Weyerhaeuser, Burlington, Canadian Utilities, DaimlerChrysler and Mullen Transportation. Even takeover target United Dominion couldn’t sustain yesterday’s gains, it’s down a bit in heavy trading.

Another notable victim today is CI Fund Management. The firm has been slugged today in very heavy trading. It is down 5.3% to $13.65, on volume of almost 1 million shares. No news out of C.I., but trading is very heavy, with Griffiths McBurney crossing some large blocks. DS and Nesbitt are trading it aggressively too.

The insurers are weak as well, led down by Sun Life. The banks, apart from TD, are all bouncing back a little today.

There is a tiny bit of buying out there, with CGI Group up 3%. Bombardier is up a little. Ballard Power is recovering today.

Cryptologic is up on news of a planned buyback. Newcourt and CIT are up in response to CIT’s planned takeover by Tyco, but otherwise the buying is very selective.

In New York, hints at a rally were short-lived. The Dow Jones industrial average opened in the black, but slipped immediately, and is now off 58 points to 10.150.

The Nasdaq composite index is holding up a little better, gaining 32 points to 1,956. The S&P 500 is down four ticks to 1,176.

Traders are not yet seeing sustained bargain hunting, consistent with a bottom. As a result buying remains thin, and nerves frazzled.

Nasdaq’s bounce comes thanks to Cisco Systems, Oracle, Sun and Dell. JDS Uniphase and Ericsson remain weak. Tyco is down heavily on the NYSE, as a consequence of its takeover bid for CIT. Drug stocks are also weak. There’s some buying resistance in GE, EMC and Nokia.

The CDNX is sliding mildly, down 23 points to 3,060. Volume is average at 17.6 million shares. Tech and mines are down with oils holding up. The top trader is Cyan Corp. thanks to a single 2.5 million share trade in its debut. Hilton Petroleum Ltd is up 8% to $3 on 775,615 shares.