Overheard On The Street
Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:
Art Hogen, Chief Market Analyst,
Jefferies & Co.: “I think that as early as yesterday afternoon we came
to the realization of several things. One of them is that we will have a
President at some point in time. Regardless of who it is, I think the markets
have decided to move on because I think it’s a foregone conclusion that, (a)
there will be a President, and (b) he’s not going to be that impactive to Wall
Street. With such a razor-thin majority in Congress, very few large policy items
are really going to be put into place in the first year of the next
administration. So, we got what we wanted. We’ve been acting like we didn’t
because of the uncertainty, and we’re starting to come to that realization.
“The other thing that we are realizing is that the economy is slowing,
and that is true, but it’s not stopping. We’ve been acting in the equities
markets like it’s stopping, so I think that the oversold scenario we’ve been
looking at in equities over the last week or so has been just too glaring an
issue, and bargain hunters came in yesterday afternoon and continue to pile in
today. That will probably have some momentum because the trend has been down a
whole lot more that it’s been since August.”
Robert Stovall, Market Strategist,
Prudential Securities: “The volume yesterday was above a billion, and I
think we could do the same today, which would be a plus in this atmosphere
because it’s an up day today. The much abused and maligned Nasdaq is doing well.
All the indices and HOLDRs that I watch are up nicely today, but they’re still
much closer to their bottom than to their top.
“Regarding tomorrow’s Fed meeting, I was hoping the Fed would at least
give us some body English or at least allow us to infer from their mutterings
that they we’re looking forward to reducing the cost of renting money because
they may have over-reached a bit. However, I don’t think they’ll say anything in
light of the election controversy.”
John Roque, Vice President, Anhold and S.
Bleichroeder: “As for yesterday’s reversal, the ability to get off the mat
was a good sign, and it occurred as momentum indicators were showing a positive
divergence — i.e., downside momentum did not accelerate despite the breakdown
beneath 3000. Similarly, despite Nasdaq’s close under 3000, Nasdaq bellwether
Cisco was able to close above 50. 3/8 of a dollar isn’t much, but if you’re
looking for reasons to be optimistic then that’s one of them. Also, we thought
the 2750/2800 level represented support for the Nasdaq on a leg under 3000 and
the intraday low was 2859.39 so that’s close to what we thought would be able to
hold.”