Donald Selkin Year Quotations

On the surface, the Microsoft news was terrific. When a company says it's paying a dividend and announces a 2-for-1 stock split, that's usually a sign of good things to come. But then they warned about the year and said IT (information technology) spending wasn't going to pick up, and so the stock is selling.

All these earnings look pretty good. But after the huge stock run last year and the expectation of the good earnings, I think you're seeing a bit of that old 'sell the news' reaction.

The earnings among technology companies this year will be up something like 30 percent. And remember, that's compared to a strong 1999.