Overheard On The Street

Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:

Michael Lyons, Senior Trader, Morgan
Stanley Dean Witter: "The market’s acting very good. Greenspan came across
early today, and his comments were music to our ears. We’ve been waiting for
some good news for some time, and we found it here. Also, the political
situation looks like it may be coming to an end in the next few days, which is
also something investors have been looking for. We’re in a new month, and
there’s a lot of money on the sidelines. A lot of these technology stocks have
been beaten down to prices we haven’t seen before. If you look at some of these
stocks quickly, you’d think you were looking at stock splits here. It’s fairly
encouraging to see stocks responding in this positive manner."

Jay Suskind, Director of Trading, Ryan
Beck & Co.: "Obviously, everybody was anticipating this election thing
to kind of subside, and I would say we are 90% there. That was the initial impetus
this morning to take the market up in the first hour, and then conveniently,
Greenspan got on and solidified the rally by basically intimating that he’s
going to be going to a neutral bias and that the economy is doing okay. The
market just read that and said that see, we were right, we know he’s going to go
neutral in December and cut early next year, and he’s going to assure us of that
soft landing. Obviously, everybody’s been looking at last week as a bottom, and
maybe we did last week on that big volume Wednesday to the downside."

Dennis Jarrett, Chief Market Analyst,
Jarrett Investment Research: "We have a combination of the perception that
the Fed is done tightening, and plus what seems to be a resolution in the
Presidential election all thrown together with an oversold condition in the
Nasdaq, allowing a levitating market. What we haven’t seen yet is a lot of the
institutions participating. The real key will be the next two days. That’s where
we will have to see the follow through."