Just for the hell of it I transcribed the Ed Brown portion of the Rukeyser show (the only thing I learned in high school was how to type fast). I have to say it was the gloomiest Rukeyser show I've seen in a long time. Rukeyser's opening monolog was an attack on Greenspan, talking about how he and his buddies at the Fed believe that prosperity is bad and they're screwing up the market. Also the second panelist, John Kim, who is an 'Elf', switched from bullish to neutral because of the Fed. When Rukeyser asked him why neutral instead of flat-out bearish, Kim replied that he is bearish on the Nasdaq, but since the Elves predictions are based on the Dow and not the NAZ, he doesn't think the Dow will go down more than 5% in the next 3 months.
However, Sun did get a mention as follows. Actually, CHUCK, SUNW was the last company Brown mentioned, not the first. Just another demonstration of QwikSand's First Law: People believe what they want to believe<g>.
--QS
LR: Ed Brown, is there any chance that the Fed is going to fool us next week and not raise interest rates by half a point?
EB: I would say there's almost a zero chance that they're not going to raise interest rates, the big question is by how much. If I was a betting man, Lou, I would say probably half a percentage point. The reason is, they've tried notching it twenty-five basis points at a time, a quarter-percent at a time, and it just hasn't slowed the economy enough.
LR: How much impact do you think it'll have on the stock market?
EB: I think it's already expected, so I don't expect it to have very much impact. Here's what I find interesting about the stock market. Since the end of March, of course, there's been a big setback. Not that I want to see the market go down, or take glee in that, but I am glad to see the nature of the stocks that caused the biggest portion of the decline. Because there's been a lot of masquerading going on, and the masks were stripped off, and I don't think there was too much behind the mask.
LR: Um, might one assume from that that you were not heavily into internet stocks?
(General laughter.)
EB: You got it! How did you guess that? Yeah, so I think the key thing to watch when it turns, and of course the last couple of days, you know, have been pretty decent...
LR: Yeah.
EB: ...but as the turn comes, to watch the nature of the stocks driving the path up.
LR: You've always believed in growth at a reasonable price. Where do you find growth at a reasonable price now?
EB: A lot of very good companies. I would say a company like MCI Worldcom is still very attractively priced, the stock hasn't done very much. AFLAC would be another one that's very reasonably priced. Cardinal Health is another good company that's very reasonably priced. I would say with the setback, companies that we've just been dying to buy because they're so well-positioned are coming into a decent zone. Oracle would be an example. Sun Microsystems, with the setback. Very well-positioned companies.
LR: (Sarcastic) Those prices are getting more reasonable all the time.
EB: (Cheerful) Yeah!
LR: Wonderful news.
(General laughter). |
