Overheard On The Street
Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:
Charles Payne, President and Head
Analyst, Wall Street Strategies: “I think I will point out a couple of
silver linings to this week’s action. First and foremost, you can see there is
demand for stocks, especially when it seems like the inflation question is
muted. We saw it Friday with the late rally in Nasdaq, and we’re also witnessing
it here today after some of the economic data that came out at 10:00 AM ET.
Another thing that is intriguing is that even when the markets are moving
sideways or are under a little pressure, investors on whole aren’t just throwing
in the towel completely. Instead, they’re moving over to the blue chips, and then when it
appears the coast is clear, they’re moving back into some of these oversold
high-flyers, which may sound kind of oxymoronic.
“Another good thing, if you look at this week’s action, has to be the
response to earnings. Although there haven’t been a lot of earnings reports this
week, companies beating by 1 or 2 cents all saw their stocks go up. Last week,
companies were beating by 6 or 7 cents and then watched their stocks go down. I
guess the clearest example of that today is Sapient
(
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PowerRating), which is up 21
points. They only beat estimates by a penny or two, and nevertheless, the stock
is enjoying a phenomenal session. If they would have announced this same news a
week ago, they probably would have been down the same amount.”
John Roque, Vice President, Arnhold and
S. Bleichroeder: “Relative strength for tech and telecom continues to
disappoint. Momentum for Nasdaq is poor and not yet oversold enough to say that
any bounce will have tenure or durability. The Nasdaq bounced sharply on Monday,
but the index is still weak. It’s beneath its 50- and 200-day moving averages
and looks like it works lower to our support level or 3500/3400. Beneath 3400,
we’re looking to 3042.66 which was the May low.”
Brian Conroy, Head of Listed Trading,
J.P. Morgan: “It’s very quiet, and summer’s definitely here. People for the
most part are not making any bold investment moves in front of what could
potentially be another move by the Fed. So it’s a real environment of somewhat
illiquid situations which tend to create volatility. There’s been an internal
rotation for sure as money kind of migrates from group to group. Utility stocks
have been really strong, and now they’re kind of having a mixed day today.
Certainly there’s less liquidity on the floor when one goes to buy or sell. So
the volume during today may turn out to be decent volume in aggregate, but
getting there is a much more volatile, painful exercise than it once was.”