People are frustrated. The pattern has been a couple of days of rallies on a little good news and then it fizzles out. There's no reason to make big commitments with all of this unresolved. The hope now is that we can dig in our heels at key support levels and find some balance. |
Prudential upgraded the semiconductors and that got the sector going. This was the revenge of the nerds. The most beat up, pathetic stocks had one of their up days. |
Right now business stinks, consumer confidence is down, the travel industry is suffering and the economic reports haven't been good and any economic recovery is going to be linked to the war. There haven't been too many first-quarter negative pre-announcements, but I'm still worried about corporate profits in the first quarter. |
So far, they have not made a negative pre- announcement [on earnings]. I don't think they will. You have a strong unit sales growth because of the lower priced personal computers, and I think that should propel the semiconductor and microprocessor stocks. |
Some late talk was circulating that they would move their bias. We also saw the market rallying strongly into the decision and we sold off on the disappointment. I believe we're more on the way to a soft landing. |
Some of the blue chip tech stocks, especially the Internet stocks, as we all know, have really taken it on the chin this year. So if you want to play the technology sector, you should stay with the ones that did not make warnings going forward, as did the Amazon or Nokia, so stay with those. |
Some of the stocks that rallied in advance of a possible Bush victory might be vulnerable. |
Sometimes these things are put out for self-serving reasons. But these short sellers want to cut their losses. |
The big hurdles next week are the Fed meeting Tuesday and the jobs report Friday. The market reaction to those events may set the tone for the month and determine whether we'll see a November rally. |
The chances of the Nasdaq ever getting back there are very remote. It would have to double itself, which would be like the Dow hitting 20,000, which is not going to happen. |
The closer we get to the end of the year, the more we get into that seasonally favorable time frame. |
The earnings among technology companies this year will be up something like 30 percent. And remember, that's compared to a strong 1999. |
The earnings have been tremendous. We are going to see a shift back to 'new economy' stocks because they are less rate sensitive. |
The fact that the Dow crossed 11,000 this week and held it is important for sentiment. |
The fact that we are grinding higher shows that people are getting more confident. |