Michael Sheldon Strong Quotations

The tone in the market is a little better. We saw strong gains in Japan as they move toward an end to quantitative easing.

When all was said and done, the market showed its resilience once again, ... The market performed well despite today's extremely weak consumer sentiment number. Investors seem to be looking over a softer economy for the next few months towards a stronger economy to start 2006.

The key for next week is that the economic data show strong growth and only moderate inflation.

Looking into the second quarter, what could move us higher is a decline in oil prices, lower bond yields, solid economic data that is non inflationary and stronger growth on the earnings front.

Looking ahead to 2005, we are moderately optimistic and are looking for a stronger performance in the first half of the year followed by some weakness in the second half of the year.

Given the strong reports we've seen from many technology and industrial companies over the past several days, it's hard to make too much sense of today's GDP report.

This market is just extremely resilient, and if we don't get a major spike up in energy prices or interest rates from current levels, the strong earnings environment we find ourselves in could help carry the markets higher for several more weeks.

In terms of the broader market, it looks like we may have entered a short period of consolidation or profit taking following the strong advance at the start of this year.