Voices
“God forbid we create more jobs!”
--James Bianco, principal at bond firm Arbor Trading Group
*
“Today they had to cancel the recession.”
--Alfred Kugel, investment strategist at Stein, Roe & Farnham
*
“It’s taking on biblical proportions.”
--Matthew Hand, Bond trader at UBS Securities in New York, referring to bonds’ sell-off
*
“You can say we’re a bunch of hysterical manic-depressives.”
--Hugh Johnson, Chief investment officer at First Albany Corp., describing Wall Street traders
*
“If you look at the actual level of the stock market, it’s not exactly that depressed. Let’s have a little sense of perspective here.”
--Richard Hoey, Chief economist, Dreyfus Corp.
*
“There was a lot of cautious money on the sideline that really wanted to buy in and had been waiting for a sell-off.”
--Randy Kirk, Los Angeles branch manager, Charles Schwab & Co.
*
“It was rather exciting this morning.”
Anne-Drue Anderson, Treasurer at Home Savings of America. Her job is to protect the thrift from being battered by volatile stock and bond markets.
*
“We could be seeing a possible stagflation scenario.”
--Robert Heady, Publisher of Bank Rate Monitor, referring to the low-growth, high-inflation phenomenon that bedeviled the U.S. economy in the late 1970s
*
“It’s hard to see where basically anything has changed. . . . We haven’t seen a lot of selling.”
--Joan Payden, President at Los Angeles fixed-income investment firm Payden & Rygel
*
“The employment report blew everyone away. It’s changed the perception of Fed policy--now no one believes the Fed will ease at the end of March. And it changes the perception that the economy is weak as well.”
--David Shulman, Chief equity strategist at Salomon Bros.