Kevin Bannon Quotations

When things go wrong, people just want action and this is action in the form of a deadline, ... It does remind people that not every corporate executive is not being less than forthright with their statements.

When the sentiment changes, we could probably get a pretty good rally, because that is what we're talking about, sentiment. The fundamentals are looking fine.

I think, it's going to be very, very hard to get people seriously interested in energy stocks, although you never can say never on Wall Street, ... We would prefer to own some of the drillers, because with oil prices at the this level, it's going to encourage anybody, any country anywhere who might have some oil to look for it. And that will be good for the drillers. We would rather own those than the oil companies themselves.

I think the market is best described as frozen right now. It's not that investors don't want to act, but they just don't see a need to.

I think the economy is stronger than many people have hoped. So that's good news for profits. And the profits were never as bad as I think people may have feared?.

I think the dollar is due to weaken a little bit. We don't want anything precipitous. The real big winners, I think, of the weakness of the dollar may be some foreign stocks. I think Americans might want to start looking abroad a little bit more.

I think some of the sectors that have gotten beaten down the hardest probably offer some of the most promise now. The technology sector clearly, some of the health-care names, more the biotech and technology health-care names than the big pharmaceuticals. But what investors really want to own think are companies with very, very strong top-line growth, and there are very few industries that have those. The old leaders will probably be the new leaders again.

I think financials will be a very, very strong sector, ... You have a tremendous increase in demand out there as the savings rate has to pick up as the baby boomers start confronting retirement.

Some of the 'new economy' stocks are looking a lot more interesting these days. I think some of the biotech stocks might be worth a look. That's a big, big area, with all the developments there. There are a lot of new products coming out.

I think people are wondering whether the old economy can grow at all these days. The new economy is clearly where the great growth is going to be, but they're underestimating what some of the older companies can do.

With a tax cut coming, I think you've got to be interested in retail stocks, ... And if you have the patient to invest for more than a couple of months, I think technology and telecom are still going to be great.

Two sectors that have taken a terrible beating here over the last couple of months that we think have terrific long-term prospects are technology and biotechnology. A lot of those stocks are - even though they've bounced back here in the last couple of days - still down 50 percent from where they were only a few weeks ago.

What's going to drive prices in the end is earnings,

We think some of the retailing stocks are interesting, ... The tax cuts will be spent on companies like Home Depot or maybe Tiffany.

Is there any reason to really believe we're going to be in a severe recession, or have a terrible inflation problem? I'd say the answer is no. On that basis, the stock market still looks like a pretty interesting place.

The thing that's weighing on the stock market is the bond market, ... That's because bond investors are convinced the party in the economy is getting too boisterous, the (Federal Reserve's) going to come in and take the punch bowl away, and I think that might keep stocks under wraps here.

Pretty much 90-percent of their travel party has never been to New Jersey. So it?s kind of fun to sort of help out a little bit.

Again (with the UPS pick), a lot of the same kind of issues. A company with very, very good quality earnings. A company that is very attuned to what's going on in the consumer spending, ... And a company that has some pro-cyclical elements. We are talking about a pickup in the economy. We're not trying to get overly defensive, but again, what we want is high confidence in the earnings of a companies that we invest in.

After being worried that the economy was too hot and that inflation was coming back, suddenly you have this notion that maybe the economy is a little soft, that maybe the Fed has been a little overzealous.

A lot of companies are kind of pre-announcing uncertain second halves, or disappointing second halves.

A lot of the economic releases are basically suggesting that economic activity has stopped declining, ... With interest rates coming down and the tax cut in the works, you've got to believe the economy will be expanding.

Everyone knows the Fed will raise rates 50 basis points when it's at one time or two time. I think what you want is a Fed that's on the job and this Fed is clearly on the job and I would say they're neither ahead nor behind right now.

In earnings season especially, people will tend to ask first and analyze later. So I think what investors should be doing is looking at the earnings reports beyond the headline numbers. A stock may be off sharply for a temporary reason, a shortage of a component that is a terrific buying opportunity. A stock may rocket up again for a non-recurring factor that is a chance to sell. Investors should just take advantage of the opportunity to sit back and capitalize.

In an environment where growth is going to be slower, where pricing power is not easier to find, that brings you back, I think, to tech and telecom that have been the leaders of the market. Tech is up these days; telecom is down. There's probably a better area to buy in. And I think that energy is a good area as well,

If people sense that there's inflation pressure then they worry that the Fed isn't done. The market cares because the Fed cares.

The common them there is both of them have a lot of exposure to natural gas, which will be a big play in energy. They've done pretty well. But I think if you're a patient investor and are looking out a couple of months, you'll do well in them.