Overheard On The Street
Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:
Louis Parks, Director of Listed Trading,
Raymond James Financial: “I think the market is still reacting to the fact
that there was a belief out there which was spun well by the media that
Greenspan would pre-empt as he did in January and look to steer the Fed toward
lowering rates before the March meeting. That clearly didn’t happen, and nor
should the market really have felt it would happen. I think Greenspan’s
assessment is very accurate at this point which is that the economy is better
than it was in the fourth quarter of 2000.
“We are certainly not out of the woods. He’s never going to say we are
heading toward recession, but there is clear indication that the overall economy
is still slow, however, not as slow as the fourth quarter. Therefore, there’s no
reason to really pre-empt the meeting at the end of March. But I think that has
taken the market by surprise because the market was believing the hype coming
from the media.”
Michael Lyons, Senior Trader, Morgan
Stanley: “It’s nasty. It’s about as negative as you can get. There’s
absolutely no strength to the market at all. Looking at the Dow stocks, the only
ones that are up are Philip Morris, Johnny Johnson and Wal-Mart. Just looking
out toward the horizon, there’s just nothing to grab hold of or look forward to.
Yes, we have the March Fed meeting, but that’s three or four weeks away. The way
this market has been going, a lot of damage can be done between here and there.
You don’t see them all pulling the trigger here, but any strength that comes
into the market, the sellers are there. The rallies are met with resistance that
is like walking into a brick wall. They say it’s always darkest before the dawn,
and I don’t think it would take much to turn them around if we got some good
news. The thing is, though, that we have nothing there to grasp a hold of to
turn them.”