Robert Walberg Quotations

Niche players can have one bad quarter and they don't have the wherewithal to survive that, or at least survive it easily.

Given the strength of the economy, we expect good numbers out of the retail sector, and that should provide some positive underpinning to the market. I think it'll show that the retail sector remains very healthy.

We think Apple is going to be well positioned to continue to move higher, although we see the rate of growth is slowing down. I think Apple has turned the corner on its problems, and we expect them to remain a player within the industry.

Overall, we'll probably see a continuation of the choppy nature of the market, probably with a slight downward bias.

There have been no fundamental underpinnings for the recovery rally so far this year. Tech's been one of the strongest performing sectors in the market, yet one technology company after another keeps coming out warning that their numbers aren't going to be as good as expected, that demand is still soft.

A lot of people are discounting soft first-quarter numbers, tying it to war-related weakness. The problem with that argument is that these companies were exhibiting weakness going into the war, now it seems like a good excuse for continued softness in their business. Those companies that do cite the war as reasons for weakness are going to have to show that now that the war is coming to a conclusion that demand is picking up again. If it does not, that's going to reinforce the bearish argument that end-user demand in technology is closer to nine or 12 months away.

Clearly, (managers) aren't concerned about the case. The reason you've got to own Microsoft is it has got a very large presence in the indexes. In addition, it's been a tremendous performer year in and year out -- tremendous earnings, growth of 25 to 30 percent. And I don't see any of that changing.

The general feeling is the tech market overextended itself on the upside.

This is a group that has underperformed the market for quite some time, but they've begun to turn the corner and we could see (investors) coming back. The opportunity for positive surprises there is pretty strong.

It's the only place where the valuations are still at risk, where there's still room for selling. If the economy is softer than we think, if the war doesn't go well, if business investment doesn't show signs of picking up in the second or third quarter, then those are the stocks at most risk of going down.