John Silvia Expected Quotations

The rate of spending is less than you would have expected given the typical business cycle. Companies have made a lot of money, but if you look at equipment and software spending, this cycle is below the pace of the past three or four cycles.

I think it's just oil and optimism about the New Year. I think oil is the driving factor due to the warmer weather, but people are now looking for better than expected (fourth-quarter) earnings, better than expected retail sales number. There's a host of good numbers out there.

People have adjusted faster than we expected to the way they use credit. This could be a signal that Christmas sales may be weaker than expected.

They view the gasoline thing as temporary, and that's important because it didn't change their overall pace of spending. And that's a different kind of psychology. If it was a permanent increase in gasoline prices, then you would have expected consumers to make a more permanent adjustment downward in their spending and saving rate.