Overheard On The Street
Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:
Gregory Nie, Senior Vice President of
Technical Research, First Union Securities: “I continue to feel that we put
in a bottom last week. I’m not surprised at the action that we are seeing today.
On one small piece of the overbought/oversold spectrum we had gotten a little
overbought. The five-day TRIN had gotten down to .81. The way the market had
lifted the last three days, unfolded in a fashion that I believe was going to
see another hit or two from the sell side, and of course the corporate news
today provided a convenient excuse.
“To this point it has been a contained pullback from the standpoint that
we are within the framework of a partial retracement from the progress posted
from last week’s lows to last night’s close. How we close today would help
signify that we have put in a short- or intermediate-term bottom, and the
prospect of paring the losses into the close would be welcome. Regardless of
whether that happens or not, another key is how much volume. We have had decent
volume but not great volume.”
John Roque, Vice President, Arnhold and
S. Bleichroeder: “Regarding our call about a tradeable rally, keep in mind
that the S&P 500 was at a -4 standard deviation oversold reading vs.
its 200-day moving average and the Dow was at a -3 standard deviation
oversold reading vs. its 200-day moving average. The tremendous contrary
front-page articles in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, and U.S. News &
World Report say sentiment is about as bad as it can get.”
Barry Berman, Managing Director of Equity
Trading, Robert W. Baird: “Well, we had the run-up in the market, but you
had some negative pre-announcements last night and this morning, and the
market’s reacting to that. That, along with it being the end of the quarter, is
helping take the market down.”