Michael Sheldon Markets Quotations

I think that next week, and in fact for the next few weeks, the markets are likely to remain in a trading range, with many of the same issues still in place.

Markets are in a trading range right now, consolidating gains after the last few months. A lot of investors were looking to this week's data as a way to break out of the range, but what we've seen has left enough doubt in the minds of the bulls that we aren't likely to break out of this range in the next few sessions.

With the fed continuing to raise rates and energy prices at very high levels, its hard to see the markets making much headway, ... certainly been guy shy about putting new money to work.

Today, the markets once again pushed to new highs for the indices but the rally appears to have stalled. The likely culprit is that higher bond yields may finally be weighing on the minds of investors.

With equity markets closing at their lows of the day Tuesday, the likelihood is that trading may get off to weak start on Wednesday morning.

The optimist would say we're in the early stage of a broad rally, the pessimist would say this is a dead-cat bounce and markets are going to head lower as oil heads toward $50 a barrel.

Oil prices in the morning would've been the biggest story, but by the close the market's incredible resilience is what investors are left with, ... It's a contrast to how the markets ended yesterday. I think so far higher oil prices have not had a major impact. There are a lot of positives driving the consumer and the stock market.

That's likely to remain the case until we start to resolve a few of the issues overhanging the markets include interest rates, energy prices and the strength of the economy over the next several months.

This market is just extremely resilient, and if we don't get a major spike up in energy prices or interest rates from current levels, the strong earnings environment we find ourselves in could help carry the markets higher for several more weeks.

It's going to be an interesting week for the markets with a slew of economic and corporate news on tap.

The markets were able to build on yesterday's gains. Market breadth was encouraging.

The markets so far have been unable to build on yesterday's gains, and right now are being held hostage by the bond market. But we are seeing some strength in semiconductors, energy stocks and some of the metals companies.

The markets remain overbought at current levels and could see some profit taking at any time. However, market internals remain very positive, so investors are reluctant to sell much into that. Given this scenario, we are likely to see more gains through the rest of the year, and some consolidation in early 2005.

The markets are rebounding a little after several sessions of weakness that stemmed from rising oil prices, rising fears of terrorism and a sharp decline in the dollar. Those issues have somewhat abated today, but they are issues the market will continue to face over the next few weeks. As a result, you could see more profit taking.