Overheard On The Street
Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:
Tim Heekin, Director of Trading, Thomas
Weisel Partners: "Well, there’s a battle going on. The battle lines seem to
be whether there’s going to be total capitulation today and moving into the
beginning of the next quarter starting Monday, or whether they’ve just thrown
the baby out with the bathwater in Technology and if new money is going to be
put to work in the first quarter. Quite honestly, I don’t know where that’s
going to settle out.
"For anyone to think that there’s going to be a big rally after people
have cleaned house this first quarter is probably the slimmest chance. I think
it’s going to be a very bumpy market for certainly the next quarter. There’s
going to be more and more negative pre-announcements and actual reporting of
companies in the next four weeks. People are dreadfully concerned about what
Cisco is going to say and what Microsoft is going to say. I just think they’re
probably not going to be good, they’re going to be bad — they’re going to be
massive write downs and that that’s going to keep a lid on the market for the
short term. If there’s any strong buying that I’ve seen, it’s been in defensive
groups or interest-sensitive groups that would do better if Greenspan moves down
again and that’s why you’ve seen some strength in retailers, beverages, foods,
consumer non-durables, some banks and drugs."
Brian Belski, Fundamental Market
Strategist, U.S. Bancorp/Piper Jaffray: "Equity funds saw inflows of $865
million, and the technology sector saw its first weekly inflows since Jan. 31.
That broke a string of seven consecutive weeks of outflows in the technology.
Somewhere in between last week’s ‘throwing in the towel’ type data (heavy equity
fund outflows plus heavy mutual fund inflows) and this week’s evidence of
initial tech sector inflow, a drastic discipline shift has occurred. However, in
our opinion, similar weeks of new equity inflow data over the near term will be
needed to provide clarity and credibility."