market summary [BRIEFING.COM] Contrary to the evening and early-morning experience for residents of the Gulf Coast who stared down Hurricane Ivan, it was a relatively calm session for Wall Street on Thursday... That point notwithstanding, there were some developments on the corporate and economic front that didn't go unnoticed... In particular, Nortel Networks (NT 3.50, -0.30) indicated that it expects Q3 (Sep) revenues to come in below Q2 levels and acknowledged that its outlook for mid-single digit revenue growth in FY04 would be less than the rate of growth for the overall communications equipment market... That news resulted in a sizable hit to its stock, but it didn't derail the tech sector, which reclaimed a small portion of Wednesday's losses, boosted by reassuring guidance from Western Digital (WDC 8.65, +0.30) and modest gains in a number of big-cap tech issuess... The sector's resilience, and the resilience of the broader market for that matter, was aided by the drop in long-term rates (to 4.06% from 4.17%) that followed in the wake of a pleasing CPI report and a weaker than expected Philadelphia Fed Index... The former came out before the open, and with gains of just 0.1% in total and core-CPI for August, offered participants a reminder that inflation is under control and that the FOMC can proceed at a measured pace in returning the fed funds rate to a more neutral level... A similar conclusion on the pace of tightening was reached after the Philadelphia Fed Index for September registered a 13.4 reading that was below the consensus estimate of 25.0... While any number above zero reflects growth, the report triggered misgivings about the pace of growth as it was down noticeably from the prior month's reading of 28.5... Accordingly, the stock market's enthusiasm was held in check and buying efforts tapered off following the regional manufacturing report... A rebound in crude prices (+$0.30 at $43.88) in the afternoon session also detracted from buying interest... The major indices, though, still ended the day in positive territory, supported by pockets of leadership in the technology, homebuilding, building materials, REIT, transport, and utility groups... From a market-cap standpoint the small-cap components attracted the majority of today's buying interest as evidenced by the outperformance of the Russell 2000 (+1.1%)... Volume was light at both the NYSE (1.11 bln) and the Nasdaq (1.32 bln) as the observance of Rosh Hashanah acted as a suppressing factor... Tomorrow volume should pick up with the quarterly expiration of stock options, index options, index futures, and individual stock futures... ..NYSE Adv/Dec 2455/840. ..NASDAQ Adv/Dec 1954/1076.
