Overheard On The Street

  • April 17, 2001
  • Daniel Beighley

Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:

Alan Ackerman, Market Strategist,
Fahnstock & Co.: “Each day is certainly a new adventure. The chairman
of Cisco pretty much summed up what business leaders and analysts are
experiencing, that being business conditions that have never been more
challenging. In particular, so many businesses and individuals have been
affected by the sharp drop off in the U.S. economy that the market has crushed
plans for many people to retire. It’s also caused many companies to pull in
their horns. Unemployment numbers are now starting to be more meaningful on
the upside than they have been for some time. One by one, companies such as
Kodak, Cisco, and Intel keep talking about shortfalls in revenues and earnings
and the lack of visibility ahead, so my sense is that there is no way to be
certain that we are in a turnaround period for the economy or the market. Much
will depend on what the Fed does next.”

Paul Rabbitt, President,
RabbittAnalytics.com: “Three consecutive rate cuts have jammed our monetary
regression market forecast model to its highest level in many years. 
Within the family of indicators, the t-bill/discount rate is currently
90%, signaling the Fed’s easing stance.  This
indicator has fallen below 95% only seven times since the crash of 1987 and has
called huge bottoms half the time.  The
remaining times this occurred, stocks were flat to slightly up for the following
year.  Bond sentiment has plunged
and long-rates have risen from 5.25% to 5.6%. 
This has created a strong buy-signal for the long-bond.”

Brian Belski, Fundamental Market
Strategist, U.S. Bancorp/Piper Jaffray: “Equity funds last week saw inflows
of $3.6 billion, and that was the strongest diversified net cash inflow relative
to any prior week since Jan. 31, 2001.  We think that is at least a
preliminary sign that investors are starting to ‘feel better’ about their
investing activities. For comparison, the prior week showed outflows of $5.5
billion, and the same week last year saw inflows of $7.8 billion.”