What is the compelling reason to buy stocks right now? There isn't one. If you're looking out six, 12, 18 months, there are some good ideas, but right now there's no incentive to buy,
People are feeling better. The perception of investors is that, if Dell and Cisco are correct, even though everybody knows that the fourth quarter is going to be terrible, the thought is this could be the tone of other corporations looking forward to 2002.
This is indiscriminate selling. It has nothing to do with fundamentals. Everybody has forgotten about the long term; nobody is even looking past next week.
The biggest problem right now is sentiment. We've got to start wading through second-quarter results soon, and it's looking like they're going to be weaker than was previously expected. There's no incentive to buy.