By James Langton

(October 20 – 13:00 ET) – Tech stocks continue to light the way, pushing the Toronto Stock Exchange higher today. At midday, the TSE 300 is up another 243 points to 10,475. Volume is soft at 64 million shares, but the action definitely favours the bulls with volume more than 2:1 for buyers and winners outnumbering losers almost 3:2.

Technology stocks are up 5%, pushing the industrial sector up 4%. Financials are strong, led by the fund companies. There’s also decisive strength in the conglomerates, consumer stocks, paper, energy and conglomerates.

Only miners and media stocks are down, and their slides are moderate.

Nortel is up more than 5% in heavy trading of 5 million shares. There are good gains in JDS Uniphase, Certicom, C-MAC, Janna, Descartes Systems and Ballard Power,too.

Financials are notably strong today, with the fund companies up more than 3%. Gains in AGF and Mackenzie are leading the way. There’s no news from either firm, although volume in Mackenzie was heavy yesterday. It is about timefor the quarterly takeover talk.

Energy stocks are solid today, as crude oil inches up on the dissolution of the cease fire n the Middle East today. Names such as Gulf Canada and Transalta are up notably. Abitibi is leading the paper stocks higher, despite slides in Uniforet and Bowater.

Rogers is dragging the media group lower. It’s down 8.7% on strong volume after it announced earnings in line with expectations.

Cognicase Inc. is another notable loser. It’s expecting to report lower than expected revenues, blaming the weak Euro and other operational difficulties. It anticipates losses of 8¢ to 11¢, analysts had called for a 12¢ profit.

The CDNX is mildly positive at midday. The index has gained seven points to sit at 3297 on volume of 19.3 million shares. Techs and oils are weak, but miners are up. Wavve TeleCommunications is the top trade r again today, up another 8% to $1.10 on 1.8 million shares.

In New York, stocks are following through on yesterday’s rally, although the volume is light and it remains to be seen how they behave at the close.

Currently , the Dow Jones Industrial Index is up 34 points to 10176.The NASDAQ has jumped 80to 3498. The S&P is up 11 to 1399. Earnings seem to be driving the trading. Ericsson is down 11% after reporting poor results, but Microsoft, Nokia and Broadcom are strong. Internet stocks are bouncing back thanks to eBay’s ggod results.