Right now, anything that points to a slowdown in the economy and is less inflationary is good news, ... The market wants data that's modestly positive.
Most companies want their stock to be appealing to a wide audience.
The data drives home the fact that the economy is slowing and the market wants slower growth. Right now, the market is focused on what the Fed is going to do because the Fed's been a headwind for stocks.
Energy prices really have fallen to a distant second as far as concerns for the market. The big concern is whether the Federal Reserve is going to keep raising interest rates and, if they do, whether that's going to slow the economy too much.
Earnings have been much better than we expected, so I'm guessing the Nasdaq situation is purely a result of Dell cutting its outlook going forward.
There's not a lot to trade off. You're going to see just some back and forth trading.
There will be some uncertainty and this thing will rally. It will be the wall of worry rally. I feel pretty comfortable about that.
Technically, today looks bad as far as market action goes. It reminds me a lot of late 1999 to early 2000 when people thought the good times would never end. Now they think the bad times are never going to end.
Technically, today looks bad as far as market action goes,
This is really what we needed to keep this rally going. The Fed seems to be recognizing that there may come a time to stop raising rates, and that's very good for stocks.
There seems to be a lot of uncertainty about what the Fed is going to say. It seems a little early, given the meeting is next week, but I do think people are just waiting around for better news.
It's ugly out there, but I don't think its going to get much worse going forward.
It just hammers home to the Fed that the economy is slowing and they need to stop raising rates.
The attention focuses on higher profile misses, and we had a couple early in the season. Since then we've had some good numbers.
They'll raise a quarter-point today and in December, but it would not surprise us if there was some sort of language change that they're near the end of rate hikes, ... It will be a headwind for the market until we get some sort of indication about being at a neutral rate.
The economic news has been very good, but the Fed remains somewhat of a mystery. It's the same problem that's really held us back all month and it'll continue to be a problem until we get some more clarity from the Fed.