Direction
Bear Stearns---Driscoll, Michael---Trader
>> airbus says they will likely deliver 23300 planes this year. the chief executive officer told us overall industry demand remains weak.
>> markets really soft at the beginning of the year this year. we saw signs of recovery of the market . customs asking for advancement of their requisitions. new orders are soft for the competition and us.
>> a rollout of the company’s new 555-seat a-380 aircraft. it will be the world’s largest passenger aircraft. flight testing will start in first quarter 2005 and last for about 15 months. and the plans will be in service in the middle of 2006.
>> stocks dropped even more today, especially in that last hour of trading. our next guest said markets are struggling for direction. mike driscoll joins us with more on today’s action. doesn’t look like they’re struggling for direction to me. looks like they’re going down.
>> the best thing you can say about today is stocks going down, after the last couple of days we had where the market was very sloppy. i didn’t get a sense that there were real motivated sellers around. more the fact that buyers just kind of walked away. a buyer’s strike, if you will. today, the market started out firm. the s&p’s up solid early on. but it started bouncing around and gave upmost of its gains in the last half-hour of the session. i think from the standpoint of the short-term trader which by design everybody is kind of short-term in nature, there’s a certain hesitancy to go home with any significant position because you could be subject to any kind of news coming out of the northeast or terrorism, although it’s a fact we’ve been living with for the past two years or so. it’s been in the front of people’s minds now. if they take positions overnight, the impact of the markets overnight. >> are people still looking for opportunity to buy, an opportunity to get back in? or are people beginning to lose faith in the markets at this point?
>> i don’t think so. i think if you can take a longer-term perspective, a lot of times the individual investors discounted that everything they do is wrong. it may not necessarily be the case. you know, for a long time there in the 1990’s, the marks were doing really well. the individuals to a large extent had that mentality of buy the dips. anytime the market was down, increase your exposure to mutual funds or buy stocks you like. and they were rewarded for doing so. even as the market got a little choppy, over the last two years or so, i don’t think there was wholesale selling on the part of individuals. and i still think that, you know, people, baby boom generation is kine of been conditioned that stocks are the way to go. and if you think about your alternative investments, whether it’s fantasticed income or money markets or, you know, whatever it’s going to be, they’re conditioned that stocks are the way to go. that’s how you’re going to finance your children’s educations and save for the future. and when stock doss show any kind of weakness, i think it does bring out buyers. it may be a rough couple of weeks or months but over the longer term, i still think is to bes are going to be the investment of choice.
>> what’s the general thing people are talking about what they’re waiting for. everybody is saying if i see this, i’ll get back in?
>> you know, very short term in nature, i think that the first quarter earnings, first quarter coming to an end in and earnings are going to be released, that’s significant. the employment data coming out a weak―week from friday. if there’s any one single data point regarding the economy it’s a constant search for growth in jobs. and as though―this data comes out the first friday of every month, people look to divine a lot of clues as to the direction of the economy. and if and when they there will, in fact, be any job growth. and going into an election period in november, i think it’s really taking on extra added importance.
>> if we do get started again, say the jobs report sparks a rally, is it going to have legs?
>> i think. the fact that we’re in an election year bodes well for the stock market . interest rates, you know it’s anybody’s guess how much lower they can go. but from the standpoint of 370 or so on a 10-year bond, ottawa a whole likelihood they can go down another 4% from here. there’s a lot of factors that do point to higher stock prices. you know again, you can’t go out too far, but i would say between here and november, year end or so, the stocks are going to do ok. and it feels―i think it feels worse than it actually is over the last couple of days. we’re flat on the year and no one was expecting much if you recall last november, december.
>> thank very muff. trading abuses in muechure fund industry, there was general agreement that reforms were needed. but there’s still a question about who to fix the problem. we’ll have details coming up next.
