The bulls and bears are fighting to a draw once again today, with little significant economic or corporate news to drive the trade. At midday, the S&P/TSX composite index is down just two ticks to 8,378.

Beneath the rather placid surface, there’s plenty of action. Volume remains robust at 180.9 million shares, with buying outpacing selling by a margin of 19:14. Market breadth is negative however, as losers outnumber winners 59:52.

Golds are the weakest group today, down about 2%. Other materials issures continue to slide substantially, too. There is also some more modest weakness in techs and telecoms today, and there’s selling in health care, real estate and industrials.

Energy stocks are up, but energy trusts are down. Consumer staples are down, but consumer discretionary names are up. There is strength among financials and utilities.

TD Bank is leading the trade today, gaining 3.3% in heavy trading of 4.7 million shares on reports that it may merge its TD Waterhouse discount brokerage unit with rival E*Trade. TD has confirmed the talks, but no deal has been announced.

The other financials aren’t moving too much on the news. CIBC, Royal Bank and Bank of Montreal are all higher today, although on much lower volume than TD. Manulife and Scotiabank are down though. Elsewhere in the group, Dundee Bancorp has jumped more than 5%.

Apart from TD, Nortel continues to be the top trader today. It is up more than 2% on heavy volume of 24.7 million shares. Conversely, BCE is down a bit in active trading. Telesystem International Wireless has dropped 8%, and Sierra Wireless is down 3.4%. However, Cedara Software and Zarlink Semi are up appreciably in active trading.

The old economy stocks continue to get slugged by a stronger Canadian dollar and an uncertain U.S. recovery. Alcan is down 1.4%, Inco has dropped 1.2% and Placer Dome is down 2%. Rio Narcea God, TVI Pacific, Golden Star Resources, Bema Gold and Bennett Enviro are all down notably.

Other weak names include Neurochem and VSM MedTech.

On the upside, blue chip energy firms are gaining strength, led by a 1.8% move in Suncor Energy, supported by a 0.6% gain for EnCana. There are gains for NA Palladium, Air Canada and Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.

The big winner today though is Dorel Industries. It is up 16% on the news that it is getting into the bicycle business. The company has signed a purchase agreement to acquire Wisconsin-based Pacific Cycle, a designer and supplier of bicycles and other recreational products, best known for its Schwinn, Mongoose and GT bicycle brands. The total value of the all-cash transaction is US$310 million.

Harvest Energy Trust has increased the base component of its bought deal offering of convertible unsecured subordinated debentures by $10 million to $50 million. National Bank Financial Inc. is acting as lead underwriter for the offering.

Thistle Mining has completed a private placement for gross proceeds of approximately $44.7 million. These units have been placed with Canaccord Capital (Europe) Ltd. acting as agent. It is the intention of the company to list the warrants on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange.

Falcon Trust, a trust established and administered by Scotia Capital Inc., has successfully priced approximately $173 million of commercial mortgage pass-through certificates on behalf of Summit REIT.

Nova Chemicals has closed a private placement of $400 million principal amount of senior notes. The company plans to use the net proceeds of the offering to redeem two issues of preferred securities, which total $382.5 million. The balance of the proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes.

In New York, stocks have been sliding all day as traders have been in profit taking mode. The Dow Jones industrial average is down 94 points to 10,392. The tech-heavy Nasdaq compsosite index is down 26 ticks to 2,085.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index is down 16 to 1,802. Volume is very strong there at 55.2 million shares, led by Venga Aerospace Systems, which is up 1¢ to 2.5¢ on 3.5 million shares.