Douglas Altabef Last Quotations

It's always been a high-multiple stock among the retailers based on the reality of terrific business performance. Wal-Mart has many times in the last 15 years been a lousy investment possibility because it's priced so high. Our thinking is they've got to always be right.

Profit news continues to be good, and we are seeing some relief from the profit taking of the last few weeks. But there is an ongoing tug-of-war between 'we've come too far too fast,' and 'the economic recovery is strong' and you're seeing that played out on a day-to-day basis.

I think there is a lot of nervousness that we'll have a repeat of last time. No one wants to see this drag on like it did in 2000.

I think there are a couple trends worth paying attention to. Number one is the re-emergence of financials. We've seen that already over the last few months. They've had a tremendous run but they're coming off such a lousy last year-and-a-half that I think it's fair to say that it hasn't really left the station. But there's a lot of whistle blowing going on. The other one is that investors are very nervous about any kind of whiff of disappointment of not meeting expectations, so there is tremendous short-term volatility going on, and that's a buying opportunity.

We're seeing the reality of a market that does not have any great conviction. Anyone who expected a linear, 'We're off to the races' kind of tone after last week was mistaken.

You'll see markets continue to do the Cha-Cha, moving higher, but paced by brief retrenchments. It's not going to be as good as last year, but I think 2004 will still be a good year for the stock markets.