I think the Nasdaq was facing a lot of profit taking already. Certainly on the Nasdaq today, the Microsoft issue is hitting stocks in general. |
I think the Qualcomm report may be dampening sentiment and Compaq's report is somewhat mixed. It does seem that disappointment over the Qualcomm report is feeding into the tech stocks. |
If you want to play this market it's hard to resist technology. The lure is tremendous, so it becomes self-perpetuating. |
It comes down to rate fears. The Fed is going to have to get pretty aggressive. We're quite worried about the interest rate outlook. |
It's almost like now the psychology is shifting to expectations that sequential quarters will in fact decline. Rightly or wrongly, that's the perception that's taking hold. |
Momentum investing has become more and more in vogue. When certain stocks start to move, there's a tendency toward massive concentration. |
Once the volatility genie is out of the bottle, he's going to bounce around for awhile. |
People feel the growth is there whether you push rates up to 6.50 percent or 6.80 percent. |
Stocks are not reacting to good (earnings) news. Next week begins the real flood of what should be very closely watched reports. If the good earnings news is not able to buoy the market, it's because of interest rate concerns. |
The Nasdaq has at least the Microsoft report to look forward to, which should be strong. |
The trends can play themselves out in 20 minutes. It happens all in one day. |
The worst case scenario is the Fed overdoes it. |
There's such a worldwide demand for chips that whether the Federal Reserve rises rates (a half percentage point) isn't going to slow demand for chips. |
To a certain extent, the demands on productivity are so strong and the pace of innovation is so great. There is tremendous pressure and need to spend money on the business infrastructure to continue to maintain and improve productivity. |
We have 30-year bond yield pressing toward 6.70 percent, when you couple that with the kind of strength we had yesterday, you're going to find ample reason to take profits. |