By Jeff Sanford

(June 23 – 17:30 ET) With investors waiting for word from the U.S. Federal Reserve next week and the first week of summer heralding a nice drive to the cottage, traders didn’t seem to care to get anything going on the markets today.

The TSE limped along all day, ending up 24 points for a close of 10091.10. That was on extremely light volume of 150 millions shares. Declining issues outpaced advancers, 548 to 511. Just over 300 issues remained unchanged.

The only action here, as south of the border, was a small sell off in software stocks and strengthening of financials. Bank of Nova Scotia stock was up almost 4% on the day to finish at $35.85.

Kasten Chase, the Toronto-based security software maker, bucked the trend, though, and continued to trend up, adding another 12% to its stock price to bring it to 7.55%.

The CDNX dropped, shedding 28.37 points to finish at 3463.05.

The dollar ended the week at 67.39 cents to the U.S. dollar.

Technical analysts watched as the NASDAQ composite index bumped up against its upper limit and then dropped. The index was down 104.66 points on the day to finish at 3832.18. Some of that fall is attributable to a 21% sell-off of Amazon, as analysts begin to question its business model.

In contrast, the Dow was up 26 points to 10403.07 on old economy stocks like GM, Coca-Cola and Alcoa, which posted gains for the day.

All eyes seem to be on next week’s Fed meeting. The consensus is that there’ll be no interst rate hike in July, but there could be one in August. As for market activity, the forecast is for little activity in front of Wednesday’s Fed meeting and then a relief rally following.