Overheard On The Street
Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:
Rob Cohen, Head of Listed Stock Trading,
CS First Boston: "I think some of the problems early on were Lucent
related, but at this point I think the market is trading independent of that.
People are more focused on what’s going on in Florida and how the Supreme Court
down there will rule. That coupled with the holiday should make for slow and
volatile trading. The constructive side, though, is that the market seems to
have stabilized at this level, not that it’s a great level, but certainly it is
a level where people are a lot more comfortable with the risk/reward ratio being
long."
Arnie Owen, Managing Director of
Equities, Cruttenden Roth: "Today is just pre-holiday trading. There’s very
light volume and no real trend. We’re watching Telephone and Lucent getting
killed again. Broadcom is trading below 130. There’s some serious damage being
done to this market. Yesterday, it was Morgan Stanley that really threw in the
towel on a lot of things. We’re finally starting to see everything unwind.
"We’re starting to see all of the downgrades, all of the earnings
expectations cut, and this pendulum, too, shall swing too far in the opposite
direction. We saw it happen on the upside, and we’re watching it happen on the
downside. We’re still in a good growth, low inflation scenario, but valuations
and expectations just got out of whack, and I think we’re starting to see some
of that fall back into place at which point we’ll get the underpinnings for a
good rally."
Paul Rabbitt, President,
RabbittAnalytics.com: "The economy is fraying at the edges. Six consecutive
rate hikes have just begun to filter their way into the economic landscape. It
usually takes a year or more for Federal Reserve rate changes to take effect. We
are just now feeling the first few hikes and there is more to come. The
increases in oil prices are the equivalent of additional rate hikes and are
dampening the economy. The sharp decline in stock prices will erode consumer
confidence. World central banks have been raising rates and the world economic
recovery will also falter."