Ram Kolluri Quotations

Unless there is a dramatic, clear-cut winner, which at this point is not statistically likely, there is little chance of this being resolved right away. I think both sides are automatically primed to challenge certain results.

Yesterday, a couple companies came in and surprised us. At this point in time, I'm inclined to take profits. I feel that we are fairly valued.

We're looking at the headline news, but the market is being supported by the girders of the economy, a basic, strong foundation, ... I don't expect a dramatic rally from here, but we are very much on track for a high-single-digit, low-double-digit total return for the year.

SDL is a component supplier. They supply a lot of materials to Nortel Networks and they're a nice story in the optical fiber equipment, ... ... optical fiber investments will raise from 3 billion in 1999 to approximately 15 billion in 2003. Globally the demand is going to be $40 billion for year 2003. And these are the people who are going to supply all the equipment.

Short-term, the market is looking for an excuse to sell off. Year-to-date, you've got the Nasdaq up almost 46 percent, the Dow up nearly 20 percent, the S&P 500 up 22 percent, and there's a bit of a 'take the money and run' sentiment.

Basically we're trading sideways until there's an indication of corporate spending and of earnings picking up. Institutional investors are buying and selling, but the individual investor is still on the sidelines.

We're off to the races, and the market seems to be saying that we're going to see an economic recovery. I'm in the camp that we're beginning to see early indications of an economic recovery.

We are experiencing these extreme levels of fear, with investors saying that they are not interested in hearing any positives, like the retail sales this morning, and that they want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The silver lining is that this kind of panic is historically the classic feeling when a bear market is at its bottom.

Today is a digestion period after yesterday's rally. I don't see a big follow-through. But the momentum suggests that the direction is up. There's a lot of cash still sitting on the sidelines.

Really, in the market today, the most significant mover is the earnings. If earnings do well, the market will do well, if not, then the market won't.

We've been given this embarrassment of riches where the market seems to want to go up every day, regardless of the news.

We're reeling. Everything is up on the table and we are going to be under this cloud for a while. For a long time, people have been so focused on earnings that corporate America realized that they can get away with playing games with the balance sheet, and now it's catching up with them.

This war situation is getting out of control. Buyers are on strike. Six out of the last eight weeks have been down. The action is completely emotion-driven.

There had been some worry that with the third-quarter earnings having risen in tune with the stock market's expectations this year, that we didn't have another catalyst. But now we see that that's not necessarily the case. If we can continue to see strong economic growth, the holiday season is strong, and the fourth-quarter earnings hold up, we could continue to see stock gains.

Earnings season is finished, and the economy is taking this one step forward, one step back path. I'm looking for us to be in a holding pattern at least through the rest of February.

Definitely, there is a turning around of the ship here. Earnings are improving and investors are starting to respond to that.

This isn't going to be a straight line going up. It's going to be a two steps forward, one step back thing, ... But I am not expecting a big sell-off here.

It's not the end of the run. The market needs a breather, and that's what the selling is about.

It's like (Dickens') 'A Tale of Two Cities,' 'it was the best of times, it was the worst of times,' ... If you get away from the stock noise, the economy is recovering, manufacturing is picking up, you've got the services report this morning. But the market just wants to ignore this information.

At the peak people were throwing money at anything, regardless of the fundamentals. Now you have the opposite. There are good companies and some decent bargains out there, and people are completely ignoring them with all this panic.

Their story is programmable chips. When you get on that cellular phone, you want your high-speed communications and everything else. They are the heart of cellular communication devices, these programmable, customizable chips.

I'm somewhat in the cautious camp. The rally may continue, but this is exactly how we felt in 1999 and 2000 before we started questioning earnings. I feel there is going to be a reality check somewhere.

Higher energy prices, new fears of terrorism, some profit taking after the previous rally -- all of that is why we've come back from the late January, early February levels.

I don't really see anything substantial that could derail this market right now.

I do think this is a lull in the market rather than a new bear trend. One month does not a trend make.

This has really become a spectator sport. When your team is up everyone is in the stands cheering and when your team is down, people are on the sidelines. But euphoria about the war going right and depression about it going wrong represents a very short-term view of the market.

The economy's problem is not interest rates; it's that there is this global concern about terrorism. In this scenario, investors and risk-takers are saying, 'Why should I get in the middle of this nonsense; I'll wait on the sidelines'.

The market has been happy with the first-quarter results, but why? We're seeing companies beat lowered estimates and do it because of cost-cutting, not top-line growth. Unless the earnings start to improve, the economy picks up, this market is going to continue to be too richly valued.