The earnings numbers are still respectable, but they are softening. The psychology is that you can’t make projections about future earnings without having some sense about where the price of oil is going and what...

Second quarter is going to be excellent. Remember when the first quarter was reported in April, we had a 1,000-point gain in the Dow, and that was only a 10-percent (earnings) gain.

I’m amazed at how well the market has held. This sideways action shows a very strong market.

I’m expecting more of the same.

so you can see how narrow (the rally) really is.

Rising long rates threaten the bellwether housing industry as well as consumer spending. The higher [bond] returns begin to compete with stocks for institutional affection.

Translated, the Microsoft ruling was a major event, but it was so predictable as to have little immediate impact.

Cyclical stocks are helping the Dow today. Morgan Stanley upgraded some chemical stocks and that’s giving cyclical stocks — paper, chemicals — a boost.

On Friday, we had a ratio of 12 to 1 of losers to winners. That’s the worst performance since 1997. We also had over 3,000 declining issues. This shows real weakness.

We’re going through this pre-announcement period where all the gloom and all the doom and all the negative statements are being made.

Basically, the (people on the) sidelines are coming in. The economic signals are just too strong to ignore.

The fundamentals have undercut any efforts for the market to rally on Iraq news,

The two biggies after the close (Tuesday) — Microsoft and Intel — were OK but certainly not a market turn-on,

A quarter-point rate hike would send a message of steady as she goes.

This is all promulgated by overseas markets. We started with the festering Asian situation, Russia then spilled over into Latin America, and Wall Street has trouble dealing with all these overseas situations.

Negative guidance from Intel kicked off a new selling wave in beleaguered technology, while the February job figures turned out to be strong enough to raise some doubts about aggressive Federal Reserve ease.

Gimme a break, … Where do we go from there?

Cisco reports earnings tomorrow (Tuesday) and certainly that stock is at a price where there may be a split.

It’s not like stocks are sitting there unloved. They have done well.

We say it again and again, but it’s true that everything depends on the consumer, since around 70% of our economy is based around consumer spending.

Rising rates won’t hurt the new techies, but they might impact the ‘old economy’ customers,

We’ve been down for six weeks on the S&P 500, and if you stretch a rubber band enough, it’s going to snap back, … The question is ‘is this a head fake or will it...

This is the first day of the month, you may have seen some end-of-the-month portfolio selling dissipating, … And this is the day that Microsoft is distributing $33 billion in cash, so there is some...

It was a pretty dismal day. We’re really in oversold conditions at this point.

The Microsoft delay has hurt the Nasdaq and will reverberate throughout all of technology. That will be today’s big headline. We closed ragged yesterday, so we’re going to have a tired market to start.

So far the earnings season is kind of a mixed bag. It’s not the catalyst that everyone was expecting it to be. Nokia was disappointing, Apple was positive and Citigroup is in the middle. We’re...

I don’t think the money managers are going to go rushing into stocks just simply because we got to Dow 10,000.

The traders wanted 75 basis points (three-quarter percentage point) so they sold on the news. After the traders sold, investors stepped up to the plate (to sell).

[Tuesday’s] trading will be drab because of meat and potatoes issues, not a Kerry/Edwards combo.

There’s a cautious backdrop (on Wall Street). We’re heading to that glide path toward the Fed meeting. I think there has been a gravitation toward the cyclical stocks and away from the blue chips. And...

The bull market only ends on a fundamental reason. It ends if inflation rises and rates rise. It ends if profits dive. It doesn’t end because the Dow goes down on a random day based...

The market finished sloppy yesterday and it rolled over into today. We’ve been resilient, though. We’re coming to the end of the quarter, so there’s a lot of speculation popping up as to what [earnings]...

Attention will be focused on the statement that follows the 2:15 p.m. ET rate announcement, as it will give us a better indication on the Fed’s future course of action. Noteworthy is that the tendency...

What does Buffett know? He’s only worth $18 billion. I think he has warned of this in the past. And, indeed, he’s right on blue chips There has been a gravitation toward the cyclical stocks...

People will move along at an unhurried pace. No one is rushing to get in, and yet there are bargains around, so we’re in this range-bound atmosphere.

It’s been a slightly negative day, but after three good days and three good months, I fail to see how this is going to be a significant problem. It’s just a breather today.

However, the history of the stock market is that everyone sells into the strength. So I’ll be taking it one hour at a time. I’m in a show-me mood today.

a buffer to the downside.

I’d be a selective buyer.

There are many facets to the market. One facet has been that money managers have been willing to dip their toe in the water.

I think the market has done quite well in what is supposed to be the worst month of the year, but at some point you’re going to run into an overbought condition.

The Dow is dopey, … It gained 1,000 points since mid-April. That’s impressive. If it falls 100 points, so be it.

Clearly, the gulf between technology and the rest of the market was so wide it was impossible to sustain. And there had to be a correction somewhere and the correction is under way.

It’s a catch-22. If any of these numbers comes in too strong, it’s going to hurt stocks because it means the Fed is going to keep hiking.

I’m really amazed [The market] is getting tired, but invariably in the last hour of trading there’s a cavalry charge and we close at a new high.

Confession may be good for the soul, but not on Wall Street. The negative pre-announcements that have been with us for the past two weeks has begun to accelerate with 21 confessions yesterday (Wednesday) and...

Suddenly these inflation figures have a psychological impact.

It was a very gratifying day. But I’d like to see some follow-through tomorrow (Tuesday).

If oil could get down to $35 a barrel, that would be gratuitous. When oil got to $41.85 [last week], the fear was that it would blow off to $50. I don’t know if oil...

If it’s just one,’ that’s the whole premise. That this is not the first in a series, this one isolated incident and then we’re on to better things. This is a miscalculation.