It's been a 'no-brainer' momentum market where securities analysis isn't important, and now you have almost dangerous valuation levels on those stocks, |
It's just a great stock to own here, ... The company is growing in excess of 20 percent. The demographics are great for education. The company is selling at about 15 times what we think they can earn next year. It's also one of the few independent publishers left and so we think it's a strategic acquisition candidate, probably worth over $60 a share, and the stock's at about $45. |
It's not going to make or break a bull or a bear market, but it's a negative. |
North Fork Bancorp stock is selling at about 20. We think its fair value would be about 30. But meanwhile, you're getting a 3 percent dividend yield and it's selling at 10 times earnings. Demographically, it's a very attractive area. So, your risk in buying North Fork is that you're a little bit early and the market doesn't care about value stocks for a while. And of course, in a period of rising rates, financial stocks don't do particularly well. But, ... if you buy it and put it away, you'll end up making 50 percent from current levels over a 12 to 18 month period. |
On balance, the earnings period so far has been very reasonable, even better than expected. |
Once the Russell 2000 starts to move because it is fundamentally more attractive, you'll see a lot of money chasing limited market capitalization stocks. You can get a very significant move in the Russell 2000 in a very short time and I would anticipate that happening starting very soon. |
Price-to-earnings ratios are high by historic standards, but the bulls would say that, given low interest rates, they're not too expensive. I think they're generally not convincingly cheap or expensive -- the key is to find individual stocks that are cheap. |
Stock investors have concluded that the economy was in good shape before Hurricane's Katrina and Rita, and that it has come through the storms in reasonably good shape, with the exception of oil, |
Stock investors have concluded that the economy was in good shape before Hurricane's Katrina and Rita, and that it has come through the storms in reasonably good shape, with the exception of oil. |
The basic factors that caused the market to go down remain in place, and I think those worries are going to be with us for the next couple of months, ... certainly until we get third-quarter earnings reports, and maybe through the election. |
The best news is cresting right now, ... so it very well may be that we had a fabulous run in the market from March 2003 to January 2004, we've sort of marked time since then, and we'll roll over for the rest of the year until we get better visibility on 2005. |
The best time in the stock market is when interest rates are low and earnings are poised to grow. |
The bias at this time of year should be up and, if it's not, it will be because of Southeast Asia. |
The building blocks of a bear market are not there. It's a correction and it will probably go on for a little bit longer, but I think by the end of April the flood of good corporate earnings reports will overwhelm the negative sentiment that you are getting now. |
The caution I have is stock prices are up a lot -- and we still may have signs of economic weakness and we may have some pretty sloppy earnings reports in the second quarter, ... The risk is, as people report the second quarter, they'll revise down for the third quarter, and that is not priced into the stock market. |