Barry Hyman High Quotations

What you are seeing is the likelihood that interest rates will not go higher next week, making it easier to give these big cap growth stocks high valuations.

I think, ... that Pfizer is going to benefit from their merger with Warner-Lambert. I think that makes a very good deal. But most pharmaceutical companies do eventually strike deals with biotech companies in terms of marketing their product. And the genomic companies don't have a lot of cash. They have a lot of high valuations, but they don't have a lot of dollars to spend. So, they usually look toward the pharmaceutical sector to help them out, which usually helps both sectors.

Earnings are coming in better than expected, and they're helping the market preserve the rally, but the overriding concern to me is high energy prices and what the Fed is doing.

It was unanimous we'd have a year-end rally until the yield curve inverted. We wanted to close the market on a high note this year, but now we're worried that the 2006 market will have to deal with this. The next Federal Reserve meeting will be extremely critical. We have to hope this isn't predictive of a recession or a slowing economy.

It's important that OPEC comes to a conclusion to help with global supply but it may be too late for the summer season. High oil prices do not help the economy and it will still contribute to inflationary numbers. Oil will be a continuing story to see how the price of oil reacts over the next three weeks to these increases.

You can pick you poison today from anywhere. The earnings concern and lack of guidance for 2006 concerns tech players. But the story goes beyond that to energy pricing, which is still a 2005 perspective. Once again, energy is the leading sector. As long as energy prices remain high the market should suffer.

The market is operating under a little bit of a caution flag here, with energy prices way too high and a fourth quarter starting to show a slowing earnings trend.