Matt Ruane Quotations

You have pretty light volume ahead of the Fed meeting. You also had the Dow have one of its best weeks in 15 years last week, so you're going to see some pullback from that. Airlines are down again and it's pressuring the broader market, particularly the Dow. US Airways' filing wasn't a surprise but it still sets a negative tone.

It's all Texas Instruments today. After IBM and Intel last week, we're seeing tech take two steps forward, one step back.

It's all about the Bush plan today. Any stocks that pay dividends are doing well today, particularly telecoms and utilities. But I hope that this is not a short-term solution. A range of $300 billion to $600 billion is pretty murky. We're going to have to hope that it comes in on the high end or there's going to be disappointment.

We're seeing a little bounce from oversold conditions, with stocks not being down quite as much as they were this morning, but it's still nasty out there. We're in a bear market, where we have these false rallies on a little short-covering, but there's nothing on the horizon to push it past that. It's also the end of the quarter, so you've got a lot of people sitting on the sidelines.

Stocks had a nice run and now we're seeing across-the-board profit taking, which is healthy. Reports of Cheney's comments didn't help, but we would be seeing a little selling anyway.

More and more companies are going to be scrutinized in the coming months, but despite all this gloom and doom, the market is holding up pretty well with a few notable exceptions, like WorldCom.

The semiconductors are lifting on very dismal volume, with very few people acting before the anniversary. It's a continuation of yesterday, and clearly there is a little money going into semis, but it's going to be a long, long time before there is any real growth in the sector.

The economic news helps, but I don't know if this is more than a short-covering rally. If there was something more substantial that could sustain us for two or three days, I would be a believer, but I just don't see anything out there.

The key here is still commodities. Oil has been above $30 a barrel for what, the last 90 days?. Commodity prices need to come down. Wholesale numbers yesterday were high because of energy, because of oil. It's a concern. It's a drag on the economy and the dollar.

It's a surprise reversal today after the labor number this morning. The resignation of O'Neill was certainly a positive for the market. That was clearly the catalyst. The market was also getting a little oversold. And you have some good participation from tech.