Art Hogan Quotations

We're in that dreadful point in investor psyche where bad news is bad news and good news is bad news,

We spent the week worrying about yields and what the economic data would do. We managed to work our way through it. We finished off the week the best we could. Next week we have a host of economic data that may or may not change our mind. We'll see how it plays out.

We've been able to handle a lackluster earnings season so far. Energy companies haven't really come into the fray yet, so things may look a little better after they report. Another positive is that we're backing off a bit from the high price of oil.

We bought on the rumor and are selling on the news, ... We've priced in the victory here. There's very low participation -- there's just no money in the game. Folks are starting to shift focus now.

We're getting an oversold bounce. Telecoms are getting a boost because of the AT&T Wireless (news), ... Investors are going to buy those tech stocks that we're not necessarily worried about.

We're still in the pre-reporting season, so, we'll hear more warnings from corporate America, hopefully more positive than negative in terms of guidance.

We're starting to see that companies are starting to admit that the second half is going to be slow, so that's a lingering fear,

We're seeing better earnings news in corporate America. That's what the market is celebrating, ... We made major collateral damage to stocks in the last six weeks and over a larger 2-1/2-year period. What's happening now is that the market is bottoming out and is building a higher support base in the process.

We're seeing a nice handful of earnings today. That is going to be the driver. The other driver, or the thing that's not going to hold us back this quarter, and I would argue has held us back the last three quarters, is the consensus is the Fed is done for the year, ... We don't have a credit tightening cycle to go through and we're seeing terrific earnings. So I would argue that the focus returns now to earnings growth, revenue growth, the strength of corporate America and not necessarily the macro-economic themes like monetary policy which have been on the forefront for the last couple of quarters.

We've got more ongoing focus on the bond yields. We've been in lockstep with it all week, and today is no different. There aren't any market-moving items due today, so we'll look at energy prices today for something else to drive the market.

We have to get used to the fact that the emergency level of the fed funds rate is behind us, ... The sooner we become cognizant of the fact that the global economy won't be crushed and corporate earnings won't roll over, the sooner the market will fight its way to trend higher.

When you see a deal of this size, obviously (Washington Mutual) is still acquirable,

We really have priced in a lot of bad news. Even if we continue to see a string of (negative) pre-reports, at some point in time, we're going to start to trend higher.

We've sort of run into resistance, we need a significant catalyst to move us further and it's just not there.

We've sort of gotten through the meat of earnings season, and we're going to start focusing on the state of the economy.

We've shifted focus here. It's been earnings, earnings, earnings all week, now its the economic reports, ... Unfortunately, it's a mixed bag and the biggest surprise was the GDP reading.

We've seen some really good stuff and some really rough stuff, ... The market has worked its way through a bottom, at least on the Nasdaq and S&P. Money is rotating, so that means it's staying in the market and that's good news.

There are a lot of cross currents today. And there is talk that one of the big hedge funds is going under the waves.

We set the mark kind of high with the Goldman Sachs' report, so we're not positive its brethren in the space can follow through and equally outperform.

We have just digested so much news in the last week or so, ... Fourth-quarter earnings have been much better than expected, but you have people reluctant to make big bets ahead of things like the payroll report Friday, or the G7 meeting, which will be important for the dollar.

The price of oil will be the main driver this week, particularly since there is so little economic news.

The price of oil is acting as a natural drag on the U.S. economy and the global economy. It creates a great deal of investor uncertainty, ... as earnings reports start coming in, it's going to be what companies tell us about the next three quarters that determines if investors get off the sidelines.

We need a significant catalyst. Whether it be great second-quarter earnings or blowout economic data or some marquee firms coming out with a mid-second-quarter preview.

Sentiment on Wall Street has gotten to an 18-month low. When sentiment gets this bad, you know the bounce is pretty darn close.

(On) any pullback I think you're going to see some support.

Nervousness is building ahead of the one-year anniversary of September 11, and it's bound to continue until we get that date behind us,

Obviously we're in an environment with the friendlier interest rates, ... The first sector that does well (after cuts) -- except for the credit card issuers -- is the retail stores.

My guess is we're going to have some positive action after last week's selling. We're in the last week of the month and the last week of a quarter, so there's some momentum there. If the stream of economic data is as positive as it's been, we're going to see some strength from that.

No one thinks the Fed is going to raise rates, so to what avail does a benign PPI number do to the market,

Next week we really kick that (warnings) season off. There's going to be more Gateways out there, and that's not going to help. People will make the argument that a lot of that bad news has been priced into the market already, but it certainly wasn't yesterday.

Obviously, we are still concerned about how much the economy is slowing going forward. There are a lot of people who aren't making bets on this marketplace.

One of the main drivers for the Dow and S&P has been the price of oil; that's been dragging on the companies that are especially dependent on lower oil prices,

If they don't meet expectations, I think we're in trouble -- but I think the bar has been lowered across the board, ... It's more about the guidance and what they say about future quarters.

If we continue to see the trend slowing and we get better (economic) numbers, I think the Fed can take a pass at the end of the month and wait until August.

But it's more of the same unfortunately. Volatility is going to be the norm not the exception.

If Bush does really well tonight, that's good for the market,

I don't think it's anything other than profit taking. They really had a great two-week period.

For two weeks we've been concerned about earnings, energy prices and the euro,

If the high levels of employment aren't kept up with the high levels of productivity gains that we have been making, (the Fed) will probably need to do something pro-active and that would probably mean 25 basis points now and then something in the first quarter of next year.

Hewlett-Packard didn't please us with its results, and neither did Cisco yesterday,

We've gone through a lot this week in terms of getting ready for the Fed, ... We've got some important news at 2:00 on Tuesday and obviously you're not going to make a huge bet in front of that. However, we seem to be in good shape for that announcement.

Historically, the market has tried to move four months ahead of an economic recovery.

Historically, six to nine months after rate cuts, the economy stabilizes and starts to swing in the other direction, ... But a lot of things are different this time. The Fed came off an aggressive tightening mode, and there's a global economic slowdown. It's just going to take a while longer this time.

He's been very clear. The Fed may take a pause for a month or two, but that doesn't mean it's the end of the rate hikes.

(Greenspan's) a proponent of what productivity gains have brought to this new economy, ... Of all the things he says, the least hawkish is when he talks about productivity and the new economy. In terms of Wall Street's reaction, I wouldn't say we could garner anything but a positive feeling.

There are sleepy volumes and low participation. There are no players around. Next week, unfortunately, is going to be the same.

It certainly doesn't hurt, ... It always helps to hear her say that she's still confident but it's 12 months out.

I think it's going to be a choppy week.

I think the market will continue to drift without any real direction until we get Friday's employment report and investors get a sense of the current economic outlook.

I think the market has discounted a lot of the bad second-quarter chatter we're going to hear, and my guess is that conference calls going forward are going to be much more positive,

I think the fact that we had this awful bombing ... and yet the market seems to be moving on, that it's starting to become sort of priced into the marketplace. We may get investors to get back in off the sidelines at some juncture as we start to get earnings reports for the quarter.

I think the fourth quarter is going to be great, ... We just don't have signs of it yet.

I think the Fed's going to lower by 25 basis points and I think the trend is going to show stabilization and a pick-up in growth. The current data is not going to look terrific but there will be signs of stabilization.

I think the early going, the higher oil prices are what's happening, ... We could certainly work our way through it if we get some good earnings.

I think the dollar's recovery has a huge impact on the market, when you look at things like gold, which is getting tattooed today, ... I also think it's important psychologically, like when oil finally peaked in the mid-50's.

I think we got oversold, not on negative news, but on fear that we'd gotten ahead of ourselves and that things can't hold up in the fourth quarter,

I think we're going through this natural vacuum in the news cycle where we have a quiet economic calendar and the fourth-quarter earnings reports are slowing down. It's difficult to generate any interest in the market.

I think we're clearly in summer vacation mode, so we're going to have low volumes -- which has a strange effect on equity valuations and tends to exaggerate moves,

I think we'll start getting investors into the marketplace later in the first quarter,

I think we'll see the stock market trying to price that (rate cuts) in the second quarter.

I think we need to get through the options expiration tomorrow,

I think this market can hold on to this rally and start trending higher.

I think this can sustain for the next day or two, at least until we get to all the earning and economic news in the second half of the week, ... Right now, the path of least resistance is still to the upside.

I think that turned (the market) around, ... There is no inflationary pressure and that was one of the major concerns.

I think that we just ran out of steam after a couple of hours. I am glad that we held on our gains from Friday. Oil will continue to be a driver, earnings will be a driver, and so will economics.

I think the semiconductors and the Nasdaq had sold off a little more than the rest of the market recently, so you're seeing them gain, ... But basically we're all waiting for everything that happens next week.

I think there's a lot of things going on, ... We had some good news from companies like Oracle, great economic data this morning, and you had the market clear two key psychological hurdles recently -- the Dow passing 10,000 and the capture of Saddam Hussein. All of that brings buyers back in for the short term.

I think there's going to be ongoing euphoria about the Microsoft decision. It's not just Microsoft ? it's sort of a pro-business decision.

Last week, we were worried about a sluggish economy, Wednesday it was back to inflation,

Last week energy and interest rates were the focus on Wall Street. It will probably be the same this week, as well as a few mid-quarter updates,

I think earnings season will be one of the catalysts to get money in off the sidelines and the other will be the Fed's ongoing ability to push down interest rates,

People are bid up the market by the close to get ahead of the Fed on the hope of a 'Fed bounce' tomorrow (Tuesday), ... We're still well within the time frame of the Fed's monetary policy stimulating the economy, but people are just tired of waiting for it.

Outlook statements for the first quarter are the best that we've seen in some time, but the question is, how much of that is already baked into the market?,

Regardless of what happens in the economy, we're going to use these products, ... These stocks are also oversold.

Stay the course if you're a long-term investor. Don't buy stocks that don't have earnings - you need to be selective.

Some major companies that drive this economy have been talking about a better fourth quarter and better first half of next year, ... It's not just predicated on easier interest rates.

Some people are taking advantage of the run-up we've had in the last couple of days in tech land to regroup a little bit,

Many are beating lowered expectations, but no one is saying anything good about the future,

I think people are still not throwing money at everything that has a 'dot.com' on the end of it. I think slow and steady is going to win the race, especially if we have broad, selective and wiser investors.

It doesn't take much to push stocks lower in this market, ... Stocks have been headed in a downward direction for a while.

It does look like they are not as close (to settling) as they were going to be,

It didn't really come as a surprise -- but, having said that, the broader thought process that the economy isn't doing well in the second half compared with the first half has investors concerned that we may need to test the lows of the market again.

I think the theme is going to be that you have to pick the winners, and I think the winners are going to be the large-cap household names, like IBM, Dell, Microsoft, Cisco, and Intel. I think they'll lead us for a little while.

Just because Oracle is up and is optimistic about the future is not getting us excited about everything, ... Nobody's convinced there will be a rebound in the second half.

We need some capitulation in the economy and if we get any sort of turnaround in the economy we can turn this market around on the Nasdaq. We're clearly in a market searching for a bottom.

that we've got more good news than bad on the corporate front for the first time in a while.

Microsoft's news was put into perspective as the day moved along. The path of least resistance continues to be to the upside for this market.

Why would you make a big bet before a meeting you've been waiting for since the end of June?

When that happens, we typically have a slow day. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone making big commitments.

We were up more than 100 points yesterday, so you're seeing a reaction to that today,

Yesterday was all about valuations and bargain hunting, ... It's not just about bargain hunting today.

We're certainly not convinced that stocks are either pricey or inexpensive here, ... So you're not getting anyone jumping in one way or another.

We celebrated the fact that (the Fed) was much less stern on their rhetoric yesterday (Wednesday), but today the party is over and a slower economy may have an adverse effect on earnings,

We came into the day, week, month with the same three worries -- earnings, the economy, and geopolitical concerns. We're still dealing with all the same negatives and the selling is pretty broad.

We've got some big numbers coming out (Thursday). Any upside surprise to wages might put a little spook in the market.

With the financials, that entire space has been tarnished by a confidence crisis. Also, on a more fundamental level rather than a psychological level, there's no investment banking business going on right now. The concerns remain about the banks' exposure to bankrupt telecoms WorldCom and Global Crossing,

We'll probably get some rhetoric over the weekend suggesting we've found the bottom, ... I think weeks or months from now we'll look back and say (last) Thursday afternoon was the low point.

We are in an environment with friendlier interest rates,

TI wasn't as bad as predicted. We priced in the worst-case scenario, and it wasn't the worst. We're realizing that, yeah, spending on IT (information technology) is slowing, but it's not stopping.

Today we had some positive economic data and we came into the market oversold, ... I don't think we've fixed the oversold position -- I think we're still cheap. Tomorrow there will be some focus on factory orders and Cisco earnings.