Overheard On The Street
Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:
John Roque, Vice President, Arnhold and
S. Bleichroder: “What will it take? What will it take for someone, anyone,
to say tech is dead? When will someone run down the Street, with
arms and legs akimbo, saying ‘I’ll never buy another tech stock again!’?
Remember how bad you thought tech was in November/December? Well it’s worse now
because Cisco, the greatest tech stock in history, cannot stop going down. It’s
off 66% since its March ’00 high, down 26.3% y-t-d, 32% below the intraday low
on Jan.3, and has risk to 20. How can tech improve if CSCO, the former market
equivalent of Babe Ruth, Henry Aaron, and Mark McGwire, can’t stop
dropping?”
Brian Belski, Fundamental Market
Strategist, U.S. Bancorp/Piper Jaffray: “While the move to aggressive
growth was very transparent last month, February has proven to be a
reincarnation of the tilt-a-whirl ride, with volatility and excess rotation
leading the charge. Yet throughout all the spinning, we believe the market
remains fixated on growth stocks, as evidenced by the relative performance gains
of the S&P Growth versus the the S&P Value Index since Dec. 2000. We remain
in the growth stock camp longer term (next 12 to 18 months) with the premise
that declining interest rates and better year over year mathematical comparisons
will ultimately fuel the higher growth stocks higher.”
Robin Griffiths, Chief Technical
Strategist, HSBC: “The problem currency lately has been the Yen. On a
trade-weighted basis, the Yen has broken down and even a rally will not reverse
the course. Against the U.S. dollar the Yen hit our target and is having a
predicted pullback. We do not expect this to reverse the prime trend of
weakness. No move below 112 is likely. After that we will not only see it to
125, but our long-term outlook is much more negative. Our target of 140 or even
160 in a few years time is plausible.”