Tom Schrader Economic Quotations

Last week was very busy and I think today there is less impetus to move. There's no earnings news, no economic news until later in the week, and so there's nothing really to move us.

I think we're going to see some sideways action this week. We had a nice run last week and there's a significant amount of economic and earnings news due out later in the week. I think people are taking a 'wait and see' approach ahead of that.

We're starting to get into that no man's land of lack of earnings, with most of the S&P 500 having reported already. We'll have durable goods orders tomorrow and beyond that, the market is going to have to count on the economic news and the price of oil for drivers.

We're suffering from a dearth of information -- there's no economic news until Thursday.

Oil is always a negative factor for the markets and that, combined with lack of economic data, is contributing to a lack of interest in the stock markets this morning. On the bright side, the series of company upgrades is certainly welcome.

Economic numbers this morning were very story and could give the Fed more ammo to possibly continue their rate hikes past May. Most of the numbers we've seen over the past few weeks have been stronger than expected.

It seems to be some natural selling, an extension of last week ... Terrorist activity over the weekend in Turkey led to selling in Japan and selling here; the earnings this morning were mixed, and you have no staggering economic news until Thursday, so people are taking some money off the table right now.

It seems that GM put a damper on things with some negative comments, and the economic numbers were a little weaker. They are both putting an overhang on the IBM news, which was generally positive. This is one of the biggest earnings days we have -- and people are going to be focusing more on the guidance than they are the actual earnings.

We had such big gains yesterday that it is not unusual for us to consolidate a little bit. Then, oil's down but gasoline is up and that is counterbalancing each other. The economic news we had this morning was less than inspiring.