The market is struggling for new direction. Each new piece of information on the economy is giving mixed signals, |
The market's done really well considering it's September, ... I think that reflects the changing fundamentals and the fact that analysts are expecting better things from the earnings and therefore raising estimates and issuing upgrades, in particular, in the technology sector. |
The Nasdaq clearly has a positive tone. It's got momentum players back in a big way, going in and out of these stocks at regularly rising prices, |
The PC business isn't going away. It has become more competitive. But International Rectifier is positioned beautifully, with power chips for the laptop marketplace, which is a strong area. It is depressed like all the others in semi, so I'd want to own it. |
The PeopleSoft news could make it more likely that the Oracle deal will go through. And after all the recent downgrades, people are probably relieved to see a brokerage lifting its view on the chip sector. |
The positive tone has more to do with the economic data that showed some signs of life in the economy. We've got through the Enron debacle and some selling that represented investors looking to lock in profits earlier on, ... Now we're starting to get a serious picture of what next year looks like, and it's probably the first serious step toward an upward move in the market. |
The positive tone has more to do with the economic data that showed some signs of life in the economy. We've got through the Enron debacle and some selling that represented investors looking to lock in profits earlier on. Now we're starting to get a serious picture of what next year looks like, and it's probably the first serious step toward an upward move in the market. |
The rally over the past five weeks needed confirmation in the data that the economy is coming along. As long as that data remain inconclusive, the market will be dominated by sellers. |
The real story is how well the U.S. economy is performing, ... Brazil is important, but I think we're seeing the end of the emerging markets crisis, not the beginning. |
The techs on balance have put in a fairly decent performance, ... We're getting a sense that there's a bottoming going on in the semiconductors. Some of the bellwether companies like Cisco are talking about a better environment in the future. |
There are two things that got this rally started late last week -- short-covering and an expectation that this (war) action will be brief, ... If this war is executed right, you could see a bounce off the action, but it's going to remain volatile this week with so much up in the air. |
There's a strong forward look for consumption, |
There's ongoing, underlying strength in the economy, and that's important because as rates move higher, the durability of growth and the endurance of the momentum is very important for investors. |
This earnings season, instead of getting a ripple effect on positive news, you're seeing that particular company's stock react, but very little spillover, like with IBM today. The negative news has tended to spill over to the rest of that sector, and in some cases, the broader market. |
This is quite different than October of 1997. |