Alan Skrainka Market Quotations

What you have going on in this market is a flight to quality, which is the blue chips, as tech stocks are priced to perfection.

I think the market remains hypersensitive to these (economic) reports. You should stay focused on your long-term goals and not short-term economic reports, but the market continues to be dominated by fear, uncertainty and confusion.

I think people are looking for good value in the market and they're finding it in 'old economy' stocks. What these companies have in common is they're all viewed as great companies at a strong price that are not dependent on a slow economy.

We feel we can do a service to our customers if we just get the overall trend right. We don't really practice technical analysis or try to guess the price points next week. But the trend does look like it's higher, because the Fed now is probably shifting into neutral earnings are very strong. And because the Fed acted promptly they ensured we would have another year of solid growth next year. That is what the market is anticipating.

We think, in the short run, psychology drives the market but in the long run, fundamentals drive the market. We see very low inflation and no inflationary pressures. We think, going forward, expectations have come back down in line with fundamentals and we won't have the pressure of Fed rate hikes over the next 12 months.

Earnings have been fantastic. Any weakness in the market you've got to attribute to (the) rising interest-rate environment.

It's a very unusual day for the Dow Jones because IBM and J.P. Morgan accounted for more than half the drop. We've got a lot of fear in the market place and that's going to continue. We don't know where the bottom is, so just stay the course. There's so much uncertainty and investors have so many questions that they just sell stocks.

The bond market was so weak all day that it pushed the broader market lower. Investors weren't talking about if the Fed will raise rates, but how much.

Take IBM out and the market looks pretty much unchanged on the day.

The rest of the market continues to struggle with reports that continue to show the economy is too strong.

The easiest thing is to be bullish when the market is rising and bearish when the market is falling. But as we all know, that's not how to make money in the stock market.

The market has done well in the year following a recession. We think the recession has ended.

The market is nervous. We're in a transition period as we get through all the accounting issues.

The last seven 'bear' markets -- if you measure a bear market by a 20 percent drop -- have quickly forecast economic recessions. For people with 90 percent of their net worth tied up in a small business, it bears watching.