There’s no clear driver that I can see that is going to ignite growth in the real economy. We continue to limp along.

Kim Forrest

Categorized in : Business

This a phenomenon you see in the late stages of an expansion, hiring is up and to support all the new people that you've hired, you to add to your technology.

For better or worse, a lot of investors have been trained to respond to the decline of oil, where it could mean demand is light and, thus, economic activity is light.

I don't think reasonable investors are looking for a rate cut at this moment. And the good economic conditions don't necessarily point to a rate hike either.

That is the big question hanging over this thing, is this really... by Kim Forrest

That is the big question hanging over this thing, is this really an earnings recession ?

On Fridays in the summer, there's not a lot of people behind the desk. These are investors that may not have been around to participate at the end of a holiday week.

Everybody is at the beach and they aren't even calling in trades anymore, in times of low volumes, moves up or moves down are greatly exaggerated, because there is not enough participants to absorb those extra shares.

The fact that is giving everyone hope is that JPMorgan's revenues were strong and that shows business is being done.

... It is the very beginning of earnings season and we will have wait and see what companies have to say about the future.

Demand for oil seems to be stronger than we anticipated and the price continues to rise, that is something that is positive.

It feels like markets want to move higher even though there is no real reason for us to pay more. Its a head scratcher.

The whole sector had low expectations coming into earnings and for good reasons, the stock market was stinking up the place and analysts assumed consumers were too.

The smaller names aren't in everybody's portfolio, the bigger names are, that's why I would assume retail and institutional investors are selling their tech, maybe the big cap is really the consumer-focused tech and media names and they deserve the selloff because they are not performing.

mergers-acquisitions

It dried up a little bit but every company out there that is large enough to do an acquisition is always doing acquisitions, they may not be completing them but they are talking to people.

That could propel their shares higher. by Kim Forrest

That could propel their shares higher.

Most of the economic data goes into a' what will the Fed do' quandary, i think what we've gotten today is that it's weak enough to still support the two rate hikes, maybe one rate hike.

We are treading water, everyone's waiting for the language to com... by Kim Forrest

We are treading water, everyone's waiting for the language to come out from the Fed.

The world was really, really happy with this mainly because we're all addicted to zero interest rates.

The world was really, really happy with this mainly because we're all addicted to zero interest rates, it's free money.

We're torn between fear and greed and it all happens on the same... by Kim Forrest

We're torn between fear and greed and it all happens on the same day.

None of us know what the future is, but given this moment, where we've gotten very conflicting data, it makes investors nervous, i think the final coup de grâce is the Federal Reserve and Federal Reserve tightening phase has made them even more nervous.