what is it about this stock? Note that investor sentiment has deteriorated markedly in the past couple of weeks, caused no doubt by fears of higher interest rates and lower levels of consumer spending. Again, we are seeing a phenomenon where external factors, unrelated to the fortunes of a particular firm, are responsible for the stock price.
There are two ways to interpret the current situation. Economist Ben Stein, writing in BARRON'S, thinks this is just a super time to buy stocks, as the overall PE of the S&P500 is way below where one would expect it to be at a time when overall profits are growing better than 10 percent annually. The message I get, however, is that investors are worried that the whole economy (and with it the stock market) is heading downhill, owing to high debt, too much spending, and terrible management. I'm not expecting great things in the market for quite a while, but I don't mind holding stocks like QCOM and SNDK, which have growing world markets and virtually no debt.
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