David Blitzer Quotations

Whether you call it consolidation, rationalization or getting your competitor to go out of business, it's a way for these companies to effectively deal with the collapse of commodity prices. In virtually every sector involved in something that comes out of the ground, we've seen consolidation.

We've seen in a whole host of reports ... inflation has essentially vanished from this economy.

People will stockpile food, home heating oil if they can buy it.

From their point of view, there's no inflation danger. The main risk is to slow growth, and they should keep cutting rates.

For the vast majority of Americans, their home is their largest and most valuable asset, and in a period of rising housing prices and increased concerns about a possible housing bubble, reliable information on their biggest asset is extremely important.

This was one time hit from oil prices. We knew oil had to go up from an unsustainably low number late last year.

This was one time hit from oil prices, ... We knew oil had to go up from an unsustainably low number late last year.

I think it's a fairly narrow change. I don't think it's anything to worry about.

I think we have to get through the earnings until we see a sustained advance.

Large-cap managers have been chasing the performance of mid- and small-cap stocks, and investors may not be aware of this.

Over long periods of time, stock markets generally go up. Japan was obviously an exception if you chose the wrong 12 years.

The problem is that instead of having one way to calculate corporate earnings that everybody understands, we have two or three methods. And the one that most people use, there is virtually no agreement at all about what it means.

There's not a lot of pricing flexibility, there is a little more upward pressure on wages, and when you add that all together it can be very difficult to raise profit margins.

there's nothing here that really points to any near-term inflationary dangers.

The stock market suggests that there is fantastic bullish sentiment -- everybody feels good, looks good, thinks wonderfully of this economy, and indeed it is very difficult to say anything wrong about this economy,

The stock market reaction, if they cut a quarter point, probably will be as much a yawn as anything else. If the Fed would go for half a point, which is within the realm of possibility, I think it would get a positive reaction.

The second quarter was clearly a soft quarter, there was a lot of weakness in manufacturing. I think we'll see a rebound but it won't show up until the August numbers. Getting GM back to work will be a big plus in getting things going again.

As horrendous as it looks, I'm beginning to feel we're not that far from a bottom.

As long as Alan Greenspan's not frowning, I'm not too worried.

This is a year of unusually low S&P index turnover due to the low number of mergers and acquisitions in the large-cap sector. So we are making the change at a time when the impact on index investors will be minimized.

This change makes the S&P 500 a better reflection of the large cap segment of the U.S. equities market. Index funds and exchange-traded funds can expect lower operating and transaction expenses and less tracking error.

This investment continues our focus of investing in high-quality, stable, cash-generative businesses.

A lot of companies are feeling increasing pressure to be responsive to their shareholders and to make sure their shareholders are sharing their profits. One way to do that is to raise dividends.

Also, they're in such bad trouble, who notices the fuel costs?

There is truth to the fact that competition and markets are more global, especially in the U.S., where being protective of the home company is a little less fashionable than it was 10 or 15 years ago. Merging provides a role for these folks and makes them a surviving entity.

A change of 7% or 8% in estimated earnings for the S&P 500 is significant, especially if investors are not fully aware of what caused the change.

It's just a lack of consistency. Companies change the definition quarter to quarter, whichever looks best - that's not a reasonable way to do business.

It's a sign that this is a company that represents the economy, represents the stock market and should be a member of the S&P 500.

The bet is that this will not be repeated next month.

These numbers suggest there is no impact to be seen from all the difficulties in Asia.

Increasingly, companies would pretty much write their own accounting rules when they put together their earnings releases. We said to ourselves, let's figure out how to do this the right way so the earnings number really tells us something about what's going on and the number is consistent from company to company.

Imports are extremely strong because there's a lot of demand from consumers for goods. The increase in oil prices played a large role in that but, it still points to an extremely strong economy.

Clearly, in the extreme case there comes a time when we pull the plug and chuck a company out but we want to keep turnover really low, ... But if a company clearly and substantially violates the addition criteria it's a candidate for removal.

Clearly, if we take a stock out at $2, and 6 months later it's trading at $10, we look silly and people who invest in the index will say, 'I missed a five-times gain'. But in talking to people who run index funds, the vast majority of managers say take the low-priced stocks out,

For the Chinese equities markets to assume its position in the world, it must open up.

The employment data showed a lot of weakness. Before that, I was on the fence about whether the Fed would cut 25 (basis) points or 50, but I got off in a hurry when I saw that.

The employment data showed a lot of weakness,

The equal-weighted index will give you more exposure to smaller stocks. If you believe that small caps outperform large caps, and most data suggests they do, then the equal-weight should give you a small edge over long periods.

The general good feeling about the economy of the last few weeks is definitely still here.

The economy right now is absolutely fantastic, but I think the Asian impact is still to come. The big hit is probably to come in late spring or early summer.