Overheard On The Street
Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:
Bob Basel, Head of Listed Trading,
Salomon Smith Barney: “I’m seeing light trading volume because of election
day. I’m seeing a lack of direction in the marketplace. It’s sort of a wait-and-see, bunker-down mentality until we get some more definitive news about what’s
happening today, then we’ll figure out what our feelings will be going
forward.”
Rob Cohen, Head of Listed Stock Trading,
CS First Boston: “Early on we saw a little bit of profit-taking on concerns
over Cisco’s number last night. It is moving higher now though. I wouldn’t be
surprised if we retrace our lows as markets are very thin as people await the
election results. Activity seems to be focused on that at this point. But for
right now, we are seeing a bit of a bounce back in technology.”
Terence Gabriel, Stock Market Strategist,
IDEAGlobal.com: “It looks like we’ve seen quite a rally in the Dow Jones
Industrial Average leading up to the election, and as we move through that, it
looks like we could see some profit-taking in some of those stocks. It also
looks like there’s been some expectation that we’re ultimately heading for a Fed
rate cut, which has prompted investors to kind of snap up cyclical stocks which
I think is a somewhat questionable strategy at this point. I think the recent
gains we’ve seen in some of the more cyclically-based components of the Dow are
going to need to see some sort of retrenchment.
“Over on the Nasdaq the Cisco report is still being digested. Moving
forward, it just looks like there’s still a lot of concern about the slowing
telco spending and there’s also a healthy skepticism about Cisco’s ability to
continue to post the kind of growth rates we’ve seen. The market does remain in
a bearish phase here, and although we can see rather dramatic one and two-day
moves higher, we still remain in a lower-trending market.”