Douglas Altabef Seeing Quotations

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.

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.

But I think the way the market is acting is actually healthy. You're seeing a real resilience on the part of the market. You're seeing a willingness to shrug off or contextualize not great news, which is a big improvement over June and July, when if the market was open, it was down.

Clearly you're seeing conflicting signs about the economy and the market reacting to that.

Earnings have been good, but what you're starting to see is a return to the attitude about earnings that we saw in the late 1990's, where you're seeing more talk about whisper numbers, higher expectations, and a more punitive reaction to numbers that disappoint.

I expect we will be seeing those kind of normative gains next year.

The forecasts for the second-half of the year for the most part seem to support a recovery, but to some extent, that's already priced into the market, so you're not seeing that much stock reaction. There's not a lot of conviction and some people will take profits. But I think there will continue to be a moderately upwards bias for the remainder of the year.

The market is clearly in a cha-cha mode. There's very little conviction and that's why we're seeing this kind of volatility.