Overheard On The Street
Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:
Louis Parks, Senior Managing Director,
Raymond James Financial: “I think the market is in a small consolidation
phase, and although there was no Fed action, it doesn’t mitigate the fact that
we’ve got a little bit of inflationary pressure coming from raw material prices
and energy prices. So, I think the market is digesting that news.
“I see some portfolio managers right now just tweaking some positions,
making some small sales in some of the more growth-oriented names and adding on
to some of the names they think will benefit from a slightly inflationary trend
they may see in the marketplace. So we are continuing to see interest especially
in the energy stocks and in some of the commodity-related stocks.”
Harry Laubscher, Market Analyst, Tucker
Anthony: “Our monthly strength cycle shows that the last few trading days
of one month and the first few days of the following month are usually the
strongest times of each month. With the action we’ve seen, it suggests that next
week could be quite an eventful week. If there is any strength early in the
week, we would then encourage people to take advantage of that and increase
their selling activities because we think the rest of September and into October
will probably be on the weaker side.
“We are still encouraging people to walk away from technology-oriented
stocks into periods of strength because over the last several weeks we have been
seeing a pickup in the amount of big blocks moving out of technology and back
into the old economy stocks. This is probably occurring for safety’s sake.”
Brian Belski, Fundamental Market
Strategist, U.S. Bancorp/Piper Jaffray: “Money flows into equity funds
slowed last week, netting $621 million vs. $4.9 billion for the prior week
and $2.6 billion for the comparable period a year ago. International equity
funds reported outflows from all emerging and developed regions of $310 million.
Money market funds scored their largest inflow week since the week of August 2,
2000, netting $14.7 billion vs. outflows of $6.2 billion for the prior week.
“My conclusion is not to read too much into the drastic slowdown in
equity inflows. The rotation into relatively liquid instruments means there is
cash available going forward. Therefore, given the current ambiguous market
conditions, coupled with the phantoms of recent Septembers and Octobers of 1997,
1998, and 1999, we believe that the stockpiling of cash is a major positive for
the market heading into the fourth quarter.”