Overheard On The Street
Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:
Bernadette Murphy, Chief Market Analyst,
Kimelman & Baird: “I have a positive outlook on the stock market, but
what bothers me in the short term is that according to Investors Intelligence
the bulls are currently at 55.1% and those looking for a correction are at a
52-week low. That troubles me. What we may have to experience is still another
downdraft in the Nasdaq market in order to get things righted as far as
confidence or sentiment is concerned. Would it impact the listed market? Yes,
there would be some further weakness in the listed market, but nothing critical.
What would be the downside for the Nasdaq? It could be the 2500 level which from
this level is about 9% more. Based on those sentiment numbers, I think that’s a
possibility.”
Todd Gold, Technical Strategist, Gruntal
& Co.: “Our opinion hasn’t changed very much. The real development
yesterday was really the SOX breaking below 600 support, and that brings the SOX
index underneath the semi-triangle that had been setting up for a few weeks. In
our estimation, that points to an initial downside 550 objective. Ultimately we
think the SOX could head certainly lower than that and potentially down to the
475 area. That would be 100 points from here, and in our opinion the Nasdaq goes
nowhere to the upside without the SOX rallying.”
John Roque, Vice President, Arnhold and
S. Bleichroeder: “While statistics and our standard deviation work suggest
Nasdaq should not work much lower than 2550, a case can be made for Nasdaq
moving to the 1800 level. Here’s how we get that number: Intraday high July 17,
2000 4289.06 minus intraday low May 24, 2000 3042.66 equals 1796.26.
Alternatively, a minus 4 standard deviation reading (i.e., round trip) on Nasdaq
gets us to 2550.”