Anthony Chan Vent Quotations

This gives the Fed license to continue executing monetary policy. If they see any signs of slow growth in employment, industrial production, or retail sales, they certainly have the green light to make another cut. They have total flexibility to do whatever it takes to prevent a recession.

This report should soothe the fears of monetary policy-makers who are trying to adjust policy to prevent the economy from overheating.

It confirms the belief that the weakness in retail sales was the result of a bunker mentality in the wake of the terrible events of Sept. 11.

We may very well be in the early stages of a profits recovery that will eventually pave the way for healthier capital spending growth,

We will eventually see the negative impact of rising rates -- we can't dodge that bullet -- but doesn't usually happen at the beginning of the cycle. I'm not sure we will continue to see the market beating expectations by these margins, but I don't see the market collapsing in the next month or so.

I think the risk is the downside, not the upside, ... I think the markets are fairly nervous about the prospects for growth. They're going to be dissecting the number. If we have slower than expected consumer spending and stronger than expected inventory growth, that's not going to bode well for the next quarter or so.

What is giving us protection is all the global competition that we have. That is preventing companies from passing on most of the costs. Even though productivity has been slowing down, it's still fairly significant.

This is telling us that, moving forward, we may have bitten the bullet on the inventory overhang situation.

Wages have stagnated over the past couple of years; employers have no incentive to change wages. Eventually we will see incentive packages moving more closely in line with growth in the economy, but it's not going to happen soon.

Even though we are close to the peak and we are still going to see spurts in activity, we will eventually see the housing market slow.

Exports increased by such a small amount, it's not enough to tell me the inventory problem is going to go away. We need world economic growth to start picking up.

Policy makers make policy on long-term trends, ... This is temporary. Labor costs will eventually come down.

The plunge in inventory accumulation does suggest that firms are not confident enough to add merchandise to their shelves. But they will not be able to do this indefinitely because everyone knows that sporting empty shelves in a rising growth environment is not prudent.

Yes, the economy was slow and would have come within a hair's distance of a recession. But Sept. 11 was the fatal blow to the economy this year. That probably will be the most important market and economic event of the year.