Ram Kolluri Quotations

Earnings season is finished, and the economy is taking this one step forward, one step back path. I'm looking for us to be in a holding pattern at least through the rest of February.

We're off to the races, and the market seems to be saying that we're going to see an economic recovery. I'm in the camp that we're beginning to see early indications of an economic recovery.

The market has been happy with the first-quarter results, but why? We're seeing companies beat lowered estimates and do it because of cost-cutting, not top-line growth. Unless the earnings start to improve, the economy picks up, this market is going to continue to be too richly valued.

We're reeling. Everything is up on the table and we are going to be under this cloud for a while. For a long time, people have been so focused on earnings that corporate America realized that they can get away with playing games with the balance sheet, and now it's catching up with them.

Yesterday, a couple companies came in and surprised us. At this point in time, I'm inclined to take profits. I feel that we are fairly valued.

We are experiencing these extreme levels of fear, with investors saying that they are not interested in hearing any positives, like the retail sales this morning, and that they want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The silver lining is that this kind of panic is historically the classic feeling when a bear market is at its bottom.

Today is a digestion period after yesterday's rally. I don't see a big follow-through. But the momentum suggests that the direction is up. There's a lot of cash still sitting on the sidelines.

At the peak people were throwing money at anything, regardless of the fundamentals. Now you have the opposite. There are good companies and some decent bargains out there, and people are completely ignoring them with all this panic.

Their story is programmable chips. When you get on that cellular phone, you want your high-speed communications and everything else. They are the heart of cellular communication devices, these programmable, customizable chips.

I don't really see anything substantial that could derail this market right now.