Chuck Hill Negative Quotations

We still are going to suffer. We are well on our way to a record quarter in terms of negative preannouncements.

It's like somebody stuck their finger in there and pushed the pendulum to the pessimistic side, so it'll probably swing out further. So the back swing is probably going to have a lot more momentum than it would have had otherwise. The negative is the news is going to be worse in the short-term, but we're probably going to get over it sooner.

Well, it's still the beginning of the so-called confession season, but it is a little disturbing in that we're running somewhat higher than the normal number of pre-announcements that we would expect this early. And we're running a little bit more negative than we normally do at this early stage.

The critical question isn't are we having a lot of negative pre-announcements, but are we having more or less than normal.

Overall, the quarter is going to be excellent. We think it will match the 23.6 percent earnings growth for the first quarter, which was the highest we'd seen since back in the fourth quarter of 1993. It's going to be a very good quarter for earnings despite all the pessimism here during the peak time of pre-announcements. But pre-announcements are running a little bit less negative than they usually do so I think it's a bit of an over-reaction.

Every quarter, people get all upset when the pre-announcement season is on and it always has a negative bias. I don't think there is anything to be alarmed about.

We certainly think it will end up in negative territory. I think you've got to be looking at 2002 for any recovery.

I think we'll probably end up somewhere around negative 4 or negative 5 percent. Some will probably beat expectations, but not many. Down earnings is definitely in the cards, and the prospects of maybe even down earnings further in the fourth quarter.

Last year, 43 percent of the negative pre-announcements came after Jan. 1, so there will be a ton more.