John Silvia Expected Quotations

I think it's just oil and optimism about the New Year. I think oil is the driving factor due to the warmer weather, but people are now looking for better than expected (fourth-quarter) earnings, better than expected retail sales number. There's a host of good numbers out there.

The rate of spending is less than you would have expected given the typical business cycle. Companies have made a lot of money, but if you look at equipment and software spending, this cycle is below the pace of the past three or four cycles.

People have adjusted faster than we expected to the way they use credit. This could be a signal that Christmas sales may be weaker than expected.

They view the gasoline thing as temporary, and that's important because it didn't change their overall pace of spending. And that's a different kind of psychology. If it was a permanent increase in gasoline prices, then you would have expected consumers to make a more permanent adjustment downward in their spending and saving rate.