Warnings Wilt Former Winners

An earnings warning from Motorola and a lowered profit estimate for Microsoft
kept stocks under pressure Thursday, but the selling remained orderly and the
volume remained moderate. The Presidential stalemate dragged on in several
Florida courtrooms and kept traders wondering when it would ever finally
conclude.

Negative finishes among the three major indexes left the Nasdaq down 1.6%,
the Dow down 0.4%, and the S&P 500 down 0.6%.

Nasdaq volume fell 25% below Wednesday’s levels, as 1.73 billion shares
traded. NYSE volume eased by 20%, as 1.11 billion shares changed hands.

“The market is still facing the same uncertainties we were facing prior to Greenspan talking, although Greenspan took
a lot of pressure off as far as the outlook for rates. The economy is slowing down, which is what they
wanted,” said Arnie Owen, Managing Director of Equities, Cruttenden Roth.

“What we’re looking at now is a market that still doesn’t know who’s going to be President and still doesn’t know if
we’re looking at tax cuts or no tax cuts. It just doesn’t know, and the market cannot
deal with uncertainty. It could deal with Bush. It could deal with Gore. It just
can’t deal with not knowing, and that’s what we’re looking at right now,”
he added.

According to preliminary numbers, the Nasdaq fell 43.63 to 2752.87, the Dow
lost 45.89 to 10,618.49, and the S&P 500 eased 7.88 to 1343.58.

Top sectors were oil services
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, up 1.9%, consumer stocks
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,
up 1.3%, and banks
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, up 1.2%.

On the downside were cyclicals
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, down 1.9%, Internets
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,
down 2.6%, and chemicals
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, down 2.8%.

Consumer stocks continue to outperform the once-mighty tech names. Among
today’s winners in the consumer index
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were Anheuser Busch
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,
up 5%, Walgreen
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, up 5%, Colgate Palmolive
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, up 5%, and
Albertsons
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, up 4%.

After the bell, Intel said it expected fourth quarter revenues to be flat
compared to its third quarter. Intel was halted after hours with its last trade
at 32 1/2.

Dow winners were Kodak
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, up 3%, Coke
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, up 2%, and McDonald’s
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,
up 2%. Dow losers were Alcoa
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, and Microsoft
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, which were each
down more than 6%.

Looking ahead, the closely watched employment report for November will be released Friday at 8:30 AM ET. Analysts expect to see that 148,000 new jobs were
created in November.