Alfred Kugel
Alfred Kugel
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We have a lot of cross currents right now and so it's very difficult for investors to pick out the proper path. People like myself think that things are in fact slowing down some, that inflation is not a significant problem, and that while the Fed may tighten policy once in the next couple of months, they really probably don't need to.
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I would guess this will be another weak report and that, I think, will keep the Fed on its path of easing, ... In a perverse way, the market will like it because they'll think the Fed will make another cut at the next FOMC meeting.
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Earnings are coming in 'in line' with expectations. We should still be up 15 percent year-over-year and that's better than we did in the first half.
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At the moment there are no concerns on the immediate horizon.
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have been beating the drums about worrying about higher inflation, and so far, other than energy, we haven't had higher inflation. (But) I would say earnings are doing quite well, so I think that's helped to keep the market from having another bad week.
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People were worried the financial companies wouldn't have a strong earnings trend because of the flat yield curve, but now it's been flat for a while, and the earnings are still coming through.
durable economic since
Since we don't have a lot of economic data, the most important will be durable goods.
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This was a big psychological negative and I think it was one of those things that triggered off the decline in tech stocks last summer. So the removal of the threat of breakup is a positive psychological thing.
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We've now changed the valuation of the stock market quite a bit, ... If anything, the earnings estimates have been going up and stocks have been going down. The price-to-earnings ratio on forward earnings is now down to about 15 times, which is very low relative to interest rates and inflation at the present time.
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Unemployment claims were OK. I suspect we're still in for low volatility sliding up to the close tomorrow. I don't expect any big moves in either direction. That's disappointing, given that the week between Christmas and New Year's is what we call the Santa Claus rally, and so far all we've gotten is a lump of coal.
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You don't bet the farm but you need to be putting some money in as you find stocks that look attractive.
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They're now looking at a situation where their shareholders are going to see the fund is down for the year but they're going to have to pay taxes on large gains. The managers are selling tech stocks that they might have bought at higher prices to realize losses and offset the gains.
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You really have a two-tier market with tech stocks going down and everything else going up. Part of this is because valuations in technology stocks got overdone this year and, at the same time, the Dow hadn't performed and now they look cheap.
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There's a lot of bad news priced into the market. If things turn out not to be as bad as discounted, we will have a rally this summer, and we will end the year 10 percent higher than we are now.