(Microsoft) is a positive but the proof is in the pudding ? the proof is in the follow-through. We're going to play it day by day but it's a step in the right direction. |
[While investors seemed to take the news in stride,] to a certain extent, you have traders in fear of the tape, ... Rumors and innuendo are still sparking knee-jerk reactions and that's reflective of how many itchy trigger fingers are out there. |
A couple of days of profit taking is healthy and I wouldn't be reading too much into it. The discounting nature of the market being what it is, we just got a little ahead of ourselves. |
After all this data, where the Fed ends is still a toss-up, and that's weighing on the stock market. |
After suffering from an oversold condition, recent earnings reports have clearly benefited the bulls. Putting this into perspective, one-third of the S&P 500 has reported thus far, with 72% beating the consensus estimates, while only 17% have come in below estimates. After some mixed results on the earnings front in tech, we are on the mend. |
All of this building up with very little fundamentally to support it makes us vulnerable. It probably means there's going to be some news in the next few sessions that will cause some profit taking to come into play. |
Also, global concerns have pushed money to the sidelines and it has remained there. As you move into 2003, the question becomes: Can the consumer hold on until we have corporate America pick up the torch and begin spending. |
And that's why we're going to stick close to the earnings tree, closer to the large cap names. |
As we look out at the month of March, it's going to be about the market trying to gauge how aggressive the economy is growing, and what the Federal Reserve is going to do about rates. |
But it's been the case of late that if the news is good, nothing happens and if the news is bad, we sell, so we'll have to see how these reports play out. |
But it's going to be a quiet week. A lot of people are on vacation, there's little in corporate reporting or econ data, Congress is still in recess. We lack drama right now, which means we're going to be left to our own devices, which could be good or bad. |
But the big picture is that there's no catalyst for the market. This is seasonally the weakest month of the year. The economy is nothing to write home about. The market is building against this tide every day. |
By and large there's nothing going on, ... Merck is really propping up the Dow and there may be some position squaring going into the (Fed) meeting. |
By and large there's nothing going on. Merck is really propping up the Dow and there may be some position squaring going into the (Fed) meeting. |
By and large, today's session was fairly lackluster. Ahead of the earnings season, we came in with very low expectations and the one hope was we'd see projections of a potential turnaround. But now we're getting hit with third-quarter warnings. |