Tamzin Hobday Quotations

I would sum up this week as being volatile and horrible. It's underlining investor concern about what's going on over this results period. By and large, results have been good, but any bad news from any company has got a real overreaction to it.

Europe is having an absolutely horrendous day. We've had very bad results, Siemens warning, concerns about the banks' exposure to Enron. With confidence being as shattered as it is at the moment, people are getting very, very nervous.

There's a lot of weakness in U.S. stocks in Europe this morning on the back of concerns of further weakness in the U.S. today. Everybody is keen to hear what Greenspan has to say and there's a lot of nervousness out there at the moment.

But I think we're going to see recovery in the next couple of days. It'll be very volatile until we get this results season out of the way. We need to see capital expenditure picking up in the U.S. right across the board to see any real recovery.

The market will remain volatile as we get through this results period. The problem is that investors are not believing the earnings element of that ratio. They don't trust it at the moment. That reason is going to contribute to this choppy market.