Overheard On The Street
Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:Â
Phil Roth, Chief Technical Market
Analyst, Morgan Stanley: “I think yesterday’s action was part of a test of
the March 22 lows, and the market is trying to stabilize today. It’s going to
have to show more strength to be a convincing and successful test. That would be
my view. The market got extremely oversold in late March, and we had a rebound,
and on the test there are signs of greater emotion and greater pessimism on the
part of the traders. That is one good sign for me thinking that we are
temporarily going to make a low here. Put/Call ratios are higher, volatility is
up, margin calls have picked up, there were very high trading index ratios
yesterday, so it looks to me like we’re going to try to make a stand here.”
John Roque, Vice President, Arnhold and
S. Bleichroeder: “We’ve all been here before, right? Sure we have. Everyone
thinking there should be some bounce because yesterday was as bad as it can get,
right? New lows totaled 569, above the 485 on March 22, and the highest since
788 on December 20, 2000. Declining volume was 92% of total volume on Nasdaq and
was 91% of total volume on the NYSE. Equity put/call was 1.03 (puts greater than
calls). So what are we saying? We’re saying that we should get
some kind of bounce unless this is an LTCM-type situation, and unless this is
the 694-day bear market that went from January 11, 1973, to December 6, 1974, in
which there was a buyers strike, and unless…you get the picture.”