Overheard On The Street
Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:
Gregory Nie, Senior Vice President of
Technical Research, First Union Securities: “We’ve established the
foundation in post-Memorial Day trading for a critical mid-year rally. The next
rally, assuming that we’re in it now, is one that needs to re-earn the label
‘bull market.’ So far, we’ve set the table, but not much else has happened since
then. It’s been disappointing the last six or seven trading sessions, including
today. The disappointment is more anxiety that the opportunity seems to be there
technically to stage a rally yet the market is just sort of running in place.
“We’re not undoing the technical positives that the post-Memorial Day
rally produced. If anything, they’ve improved a little bit, specifically in
terms of oversold. We have a moderate oversold condition. So, with the
combination of that and the tendency of triple witch week to be on the upside
more often than not, we’re still willing to give the bulls the benefit of the
doubt. We’re looking for some improvement in tape action through the week to
support our bullish posture toward the market.”
Andy Madoff, Director of Nasdaq Trading,
Madoff Securities: “There’s mild weakness across several sectors, and
there’s no enthusiasm to the selling. Stocks are just listlessly drifting lower.
There’s a little encouragement with the rebound in Citrix after three days of
brutal pounding. It’s pretty much the absence of news. For two years no one
could care less about the Fed, and all of a sudden, I feel like we’re living
from one Fed meeting to the next. In the absence of any other major corporate
news, stocks seem to be more comfortable heading south.”
Tim Heekin, Director of Trading, Thomas
Weisel Partners, “The retail sales number triggered an okay reaction in the
fact that the market is trading up. The volume has not been good the last couple
of days, and after the huge run-up two weeks ago, last week was a fairly anemic
week. There was no volume and not much of anything. The papers have been talking
about benign numbers this week, so I think starting Wednesday afternoon you’re
going to start to see the futures guys getting revved up for the triple
expiration on Friday. You’ll certainly see a pickup in volume on Thursday as
well as volatility. I’m looking for the market to make a pretty substantial run
one way or another, and my gut feeling is that it’s going to be to the upside
into the expiration.”
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