Tech stocks are looking a little brighter, but old economy stocks are threatening a weaker opening.

Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan’s speech to the Economic Club of New York last night was perceived to be negative, souring traders on stocks.

Greenspan said that the outlook for the economy is rocky in the next few months, although he indicated that there’s still room to lower rates with inflation subdued.

This skepticism from the Fed has stocks down in Europe. The FTSE is off 37 points to 5,879. The CAC 40 has shed 62 points to 5,595. The DAX is off 48 points to 6,231.

Overnight in Asia, traders had the same negative reaction to Greenspan’s speech. The Nikkei dropped 130 points to close the week at 13,766. The Hang Seng gave up 57 points to 13,754.

Tech stocks are holding up after a Prudential Securities analyst said chip sales may recover by September.

This morning, U.S. GDP numbers for the first quarter were revised down to 1.3% from 2%, which is also scaring traders a bit. The Commerce Department’s GDP report said that higher consumer and government spending fueled the U.S. economy in the first quarter.

Despite the flurry of economic news, most traders are just looking forward to a long weekend in the U.S.

In M&A news, Nomura Securities Co.’s private equity unit is buying the Le Meridien chain of luxury hotels from Compass Group plc for US$2.7 billion in cash.

Falconbridge Ltd. has purchased 100% of the Montcalm nickel-copper property near Timmins, Ontario, from the Outokumpu Group for $14 million.