Douglas Altabef Quotations | Page 2

You're really going to need to see some bellwether companies saying the quality of earnings is improving and that it's due to growth, not cost-cutting, before investors are going to be willing to set aside the skepticism.

I think as the year goes on there is going to be more conviction about an economic recovery. I think the market's sort of sideways with an upside bias at least for the next couple of months. I think we'll have a nice fourth quarter.

It was great that we had three or four days of a healthy bounce. But our take is that the market is being unduly punitive right now.

The market continues to attempt to find a footing. Essentially, we are still somewhat on hold as a result of events unfolding between the United States, Iraq and the United Nations. There just doesn't seem to be a meaningful signal that Iraq has decided to disarm.

The real issue is that energy prices keep rising -- it's like an invisible tax on the market and the consumer.

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 that there is an upward bias. The market for the first time in a long while is wanting to go up.

We were going to have a knee-jerk negative reaction to the Fed's decision no matter what, with so many different opinions on what should be done, but I think today, it may be that people are looking more closely at the statement and see it as the Fed saying things are slowly going in the right direction.

You had a terrible day Friday with the market pricing in the reality of these events and you have a continuation of that reaction now. There are no surprises. It's pretty much across-the-board negativity.

The potential is that there could have been a surprise that could have influenced the Fed next Tuesday, and clearly that hasn't happened. But employment is a lagging indicator. So the report is not a reflection of where the economy is going, but where it's been.