John Augustine Quotations

There are fears that any supply disruptions could disturb oil markets and such concerns are holding back both economic growth and stock prices. In the absence of any such disruptions, we expect that crude will stay in the $50-$70 range this year and will likely always be on investors' minds.

Many market observers are coming out with the belief that the market will break upward after the election. Such strong consensus views often don't turn out to be a reality.

If the economy is as strong as the Fed is worried about, that's going to mean better corporate earnings.

Just as the brokerages are often a harbinger for things to come in the financial sector, the exchanges will probably fit into that equation of forward- looking financial sector indicators, and they'll revolve around the volume trends.

Overnight, you saw good news coming out of the tech sector and we suspect they are good harbingers of things to come out of the earnings season for the next couple of weeks.

Retailers came out with pretty good reports. One would think we'll see a pretty good retail sales number, and that would give support to the market, absent much higher core inflation numbers.

Markets are now focused squarely on inflation. Will it follow the great growth we've seen and force the Fed's hand to take rates up faster than the market currently anticipates?

Markets are now focused squarely on inflation, ... Will it follow the great growth we've seen and force the Fed's hand to take rates up faster than the market currently anticipates?

What we think occurred is that analysts became too euphoric about earnings expectations at some targeted companies and, unfortunately, they were the first ones to report.

We could be into mid-July until we see the Dow break that record. It may take another round of earnings to give it that push.

Big institutions are holding back their own capital. They're looking for an upside catalyst for stock prices. Any activity on the mergers and acquisition, buy-back or dividend fronts, mixed with good news out of energy or the Fed, would be a catalyst to bring the big institutions back into stock market.

Energy is going to catch the attention of the market. It's probably a force that's not going to leave because we're in transition from concern about oil to concerns about natural gas and how that will affect consumer spending as we head into winter.

Earnings are driving the testing of the top end for the S&P 500, but geopolitical issues are here to stay for some time. That will put downward pressure on the stock market.

The trading and the underwriting activity looks favorable.

The stock market has an opportunity to break upwards if corporate CEOs and CFOs say some good things, or at least some neutral things, about the outlook,

The stock market certainly got what it wanted in a lower-than-expected jobs report. If the Fed moves to the sideline and energy prices stabilize, those will be two headwinds out of the way for the stock market in 2006.

This may be one of those years in the stock market where you'll want to sell on Memorial Day and go away until Labor Day.

It seems the storm is not going to be as strong as we feared and that was enough to take some of the selling pressure off stocks today. We are not likely to see real stock-buying this afternoon as most investors still want to see what happens with the storm during the weekend, but if damage is minimal, we might be bound for a rally on Monday.

So far financial markets like what they're hearing from the chairman.

The markets are reacting very positively to the news out of Japan. They're literally starting at the funding level to the banking industry before they start raising interest rates. This seems to be taking some pressure off the cyclical sectors around the world.