With a Federal Open Market Committee Meeting schedule for tomorrow, many investors opted to sit out today’s trading session.

Volume on the U.S. exchanges was the lowest of the year while the TSE traded only 116 million shares over the course of the day.

On the TSE, the traders who did show up dumped their techs and bought gold and pipelines. At the end of the day 10 of the TSE’s 14 sub-indices closed higher led by the 1% gain in gold and the 1.3% gain in pipelines. On the downside, industrial products was off 2.2%.

The TSE 300 opened low and dropped off in the morning (to an intraday low of 7,956.80). It strengthened through the afternoon, but not enough to post a gain. The composite index closed off 13.7 points at 8,010..

In the industrial products sector, Nortel was off 4.6% to close at $21.45, Celestica was off 4.3% to close at $77.85 and C-Mac was off 3.0% to close at $48.50.

In the pipelines sector, Enbridge advanced 2.7% to $37.70.

Nexus Group was the second most heavily traded issue behind Nortel today. It closed the day up 30% at 26¢. Gulf came in third on the most active list, trending down 1.46% to close at $8.77. Fourth on the list was Destiny Research which closed off 13.04% at 20¢.

Market breadth among individual issues was positive. Overall, 551 issues advanced while 527 declined.

The CDNX seemed to attract all the action today. It traded a heavy 44 million shares, but closed off 9.85 points at 3166.87. Market breadth, nevertheless, was exactly neutral, with 224 issues advancing and 224 issues declining.

The loonie was also quiet today. It closed relatively unchanged today, moving down 0.08% to close at US64.44¢.

In the U.S., exchanges were split. While Nasdaq composite ndex was off 25.51 points at 2,081.92, the Dow was up 56.02 points at 1,087.7.33. The S&P 500 advanced 3.25 points at 1,248.92.