Today's Market: Nasdaq Trades Lower After Juniper Warns

(Updated from 9:36 a.m.)

Intel(INTC Quote) granted tech bulls their wish last night, but a revenue warning this morning from Juniper Networks(JNPR Quote) dampened Wall Street's high spirits.

But the New York Stock Exchange halted all trading at 10:10 a.m. EDT until 11:15 a.m. due to system problems. Trading difficulties began almost immediately this morning, officials there said, with more than half the stocks on the exchange affected.

The Nasdaq was lately off 39 points to 2225.

In its long-awaited midquarter earnings update, chip king Intel reaffirmed its revenue targets for the second quarter, said it expects overall business to improve in the second half of the year, and was upbeat on the PC sector. That Intel news was countered by Juniper's confession that its second-quarter revenue would come in significantly lower than expected, around $200 million to $210 million instead of its previous guidance of $300 million to $330 million.

Intel was rising 1.8% to $31.70 so far this morning, while Juniper was dropping 13.9% to $40.16.

These days, the market tends to turn on a dime. "We're in a trader's market," said Fred Maudsley, managing director of trading at Gruntal, who suggested that a rally Thursday ahead of the Intel update was driven by momentum rather than by fundamentals.

Maudsley said he expects stocks to continue to move on individual news bits but remain range-bound in the near-term. "We've been in trading range for some time, and I think we're going to stay there," he said.

Juniper wasn't the only fallen soldier this morning. Several other companies also lowered their performance targets after the close of regular trading yesterday. TranSwitch Semiconductor(TXCC Quote) last night said that it expects to post a second-quarter loss instead of the previously expected profit; networking company 3Com(COMS Quote) dropped its targets for fourth-quarter revenue; handheld-device maker Handspring(HAND Quote) also cut its fourth-quarter revenue forecast; and Lattice Semiconductor(LSCC Quote) said it expects second-quarter revenues to fall 30%. All were trading lower this morning.

It is the second-quarter earnings confession season, after all.

During confession season, companies "preannounce," or let the market know if they expect to miss performance targets. So far this confession season, earnings news from the heavy-hitters has been mostly negative. Sun Microsystems(SUNW Quote) last week warned that it would miss second-quarter targets. PC maker Hewlett-Packard(HWP Quote) Wednesday cautioned that a global slowdown in information technology could hurt its revenue. Financial powerhouse J.P. Morgan Chase(JPM Quote) said it expects revenues in the remaining quarters of this year to be lower than its first-quarter results because of poor market conditions. And Broadcom(BRCM Quote) said its revenue would fall short of expectations in the second quarter.

Sun was lately off by 1.4% to $17.77 and Broadcom was down 3.7% to $38.71.

But there have also been some encouraging words from companies other than Intel, such as chipmaker Xilinx(XLNX Quote). But even Xilinx was trading down this morning, lower by 1.2% to $48.82.

In April, investors pumped up stocks significantly as they bet that corporate earnings would improve in the third quarter. But now a consensus seems to be forming that a recovery won't happen until the fourth quarter of this year or early next year. The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates five times this year in a bid to get a sluggish economy back on its feet.

The major stock market indices have been trading in a range since early May. Volume was thin much of the week ahead of Intel's report. The Dow is now up 18.1% from its March 22 low of 9389.48, while the Nasdaq is ahead 38.1% from its recent low on April 4 of 1638.8.

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Bonds/Economy

Treasury prices were narrowly mixed this morning.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury note was lately down 3/32 to 97 15/32, while yields had slipped to 5.337%. Prices on the 30-year note were up 6/32 to 95 7/32, and yielding 5.711%.

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International

The Juniper news also cut into early Intel-inspired gains in Europe. The London FTSE 100 was lately up 0.06%, the Paris CAC-40 was gaining 1.04% and Frankfurt's Xetra Dax was moving 0.79% higher.

The euro was lately trading at $0.8469. The dollar was trading at 120.60 yen.

Stocks climbed in Asia overnight, with Tokyo's Nikkei 225 ending up 152.71 points to 13,430.22. It's now 3.4% higher since hitting an eight-week low on Tuesday. Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed up 105.5 points to 13,808.89, putting it ahead 5% for the week.

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