Overheard On The Street
Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:
Rob Cohen, Head of Listed Stock Trading,
CS First Boston: "There’s a lot of concern about what third quarter
earnings are going to look like, certainly in technology land, but also across
the board for all stocks. The market’s very rotational. This is historically a
seasonally strong period in the market, particularly in tech and especially in
front of an election, but there’s just no traction. The market was holding at
the 1440 level on the S&P for a long time. That was the uptrend from last
October, and it rolled over a bit and didn’t hold that level. It just feels like
people are very nervous here, and there’s concern that the growth outlook is not
that strong."
Tim Heekin, Director of Trading, Thomas
Weisel Partners: "In the last two days, both the S&Ps and the Nasdaq
have hit pretty significant support levels, and the Nasdaq level we were
watching was 3700. It bounced nicely off that back up to 3840 where it is now.
The S&Ps got down to 1450ish yesterday, which was also a big level for us.
What I’m surprised at is that these were pretty significant levels, and there
hasn’t been any significant follow-through.
“The reason for this is that the leadership is just not there. Basically,
there’s been overall pressure on technology. Telecom has just been getting annihilated,
and the only group that seems to be performing at all is energy, and energy is
not enough of a leadership group to take this market forward. You need another
group to get so overdone that the buyers come in and start bringing it back up,
but for right now, the leadership is just not there."
Bernard Madoff, Chairman, Madoff
Securities: "It’s very quiet. The market just seems to be relatively
lackluster here. Volume is relatively unimpressive at this stage. I think you’re
going to continue to see this type of action in the market until oil prices seem
to have a change, but right now, everyone seems to be standing pat. There’s
doesn’t seem to be that much enthusiasm one way or another."