Kent Mergler Quotations

We're as curious as everybody else to see what happens when the new year starts.

If we can find a company with accelerating growth potential and a decent valuation then we're happy,

I can't figure out why people want to own unprofitable companies with no prospect of making money in the near future. That's just trading paper,

We're in the period when everyone is trying to define what the future is. The perception of it changes on a daily basis.

Some of the worst companies have been the best performers. But a lot of the recovery in the poorer-quality companies was just relief that they survived. We're finally starting to see some better action in the higher-quality names.

It doesn't pay to go to war with the world.

Most of the noise about the consumer stopping spending has been just noise. There hasn't been real evidence of it.

We are not heavily invested in tech and are not likely to be so until we see fundamental progress. We've always selected companies with strong earnings growth and most technology companies don't have that at this point.

The real strength in the market in 2003 was from small-cap and mostly busted companies. It was a huge sigh of relief that many unprofitable companies did not go out of business.

We own L-3 because it's a good solid stock as opposed to being part of an industry theme play, ... The defense industry has the wind at its back now but most companies don't have the earnings consistency we're looking for.

This suit has been about placating competitors, not benefiting consumers.

When you are selling a $20,000 item, it's not unusual to have financing arm,

Assuming the problems are no worse than what we've seen to date, you can make a case for a recovery. But that's a higher risk than we're willing to take.

The whole market will continue to be influenced by the war. For the most part, the tech stocks are still in a significant recession than the rest of the economy. It's going to be selective stocks that are going to be leaders.

The stock is expensive but you'd expect it to be expensive. We consider it a core holding.

Once you get a more stable environment with a consistently growing economy, that would favor a better return for larger quality names.

This is an extremely high quality company that's well managed and sticks to its knitting. Fundamentally, it has just been beautiful. If you can have a portfolio full of this type of stock, you'd have a lot less gray hairs

The two companies are similar, but Symantec has been a more consistent performer. I just do not have a high degree of confidence in Network Associates.

At this point, we're watching tech carefully but we are not ready to pull the trigger yet and buy more with this volatility, ... What seems to be consistent is that whoever just went up is likely to get clocked soon afterward.

I'm not sure that the problem is with technology,

In this environment people are scared. When there's smoke you just run.

Investors had overreacted on the negative side for some of the better companies, ... We seem to be going through these ebbs and flows of overreacting on the upside then overreacting on the downside.

I guess you'd be a vulture investor if you buy now.

Bed Bath and Beyond has the cleanest outlook with the fewest question marks. It is a unique retailer that's done extremely well on execution.

You've got companies that are going to continue to be volatile for quite a while because most of them are being bought on expectations of an improvement in the future, rather than solid current earnings.