Overheard On The Street
Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:
Hugh Johnson, Chief Investment
Strategist, First Albany: “There’s clearly a slight, Bush drift not only to
the results of the election but also the market. The bond market is stable at
best, and the stock market, even though it’s up, is clearly very, very trendless.
It’s up, and it has a slight Bush victory tone to it with some of the tobacco
and drug stocks performing well. I don’t think there’s going to be any
significant move in the stock market, up or down, until we’ve seen the outcome,
and that’s primarily because most portfolio managers are waiting to see the
outcome which is still in doubt.
“The last really tight election was Nixon-Kennedy in 1960, and there was
the expectation that we would see some direction in the stock market after the
outcome was decided. But if you look back at the record there really wasn’t any
decisive move to the upside or the downside. The market remained very trendless
after we knew the results, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see that
outcome this time as well. I think the principal reason is that after you get
the response or the reaction in the stock market, the next question is what will
be the impact of the election ultimately on fiscal policy when we see it next
year, and therefore on Federal Reserve policy in the first quarter of next
year.”
Tony Cecin, Director of Equity Trading,
U.S. Bancorp/Piper Jaffray: “I think the market’s just going sideways while
we work our way through the election process. At this point, I think by the way
the Congress went, I don’t think the President is going to make all that much of
a dramatic difference. It might be a marginal plus for Bush at this point in
time, but I think you’re going to have gridlock on the Hill, so it’s not going
to make that much of a difference on who the President is. For the last eight
years that’s worked pretty well, so it’s really a non-event going forward, and
then life goes on.”