Hugh Johnson Quotes (158 Quotes)


    The stuff that worked in the fourth quarter and the first part of this year isn't working any more, like Internet stocks, large-cap tech stocks, and other large-cap names.

    Investors become very guarded at the point that they think oil prices could take a chunk out of economic growth,

    Almost every quarter I can remember people have come up with reasons to explain away earnings gains. The truth is that earnings are doing better, and the hope is that, because earnings are improving, companies will begin to hire and spend money on technology.

    You won't know for a couple of weeks. History says they (the Fed) need to cut rates more than one time but I am encouraged.

    Shell Oil has made an offer to Barrett, ... I think they're going to have to make a higher offer to buy the company.


    The markets are getting a little nervous . On balance, investors want to see this president and the tax cuts preserved.

    (This) week is going to give us a lot of important information about the start of the third quarter,

    As the bull market progressed, analysts became more optimistic about next year's earnings. Now, it's the extent to which companies will hit their numbers for 2004 that will make next week so important for the market.

    Long-term interest rates are low and I'd prefer to buy when rates are higher and more attractive. As a federal government issuer or taxpayer, I'd be excited but, as an investor, I just don't see the appeal.

    When it appears as though the governors of the Federal Reserve believe that the end of the rate increases is near, that's very good news for investors. A lack of ambiguity from the Federal Reserve is always a little bit of a shocker.

    The question I get asked a lot is what's it going to take to get investors back in the game. One is leadership, for the President to take some steps and make some statements that show he's ahead of the curve.

    Which summer The most exciting period in U.S. stock market history was the summer of 1929, ... It was the summer, and nobody went on vacation. Many books have been written about how exciting it was.

    The election is another element of ambiguity, ... and oil remains the crucial variable.

    A 25-basis point rise is built into the markets. What's not built in, and there's a chance this could happen, is that they might shift the balance of risks to favor inflation, which would mean that rates will rise more aggressively next year.

    This market is trying to rally. If the Fed reduces interest rates by 50 basis points, it will touch off a rally, but if we get a rally it will be guarded.

    They the leading indicators have been rising for four successive months and given time, those (six) Fed rate cuts are going to kick in and we'll have better economic activity.

    The focus has been on earnings, and when you get something like Aetna, then that's going to help the market. But one of these days, that focus is going to shift to inflation and interest rates. And the Fed is going to have to get it absolutely right in order for this market to manage even small gains.

    Those stock-market returns will be much better than the alternatives. You name it, gold, bonds, cash -- stocks are still likely to be the best performing asset class for the next five years.

    The question coming out of the meeting is, is the dollar's slide going to continue and will foreign investors start pulling out of stocks and bonds because of the weak dollar, ... Most people don't think this will happen, but the G7 meeting raised that concern a little.

    Sometime managements are the ones that make the mistake and think they're the ones that are going to survive. They have no perspective and don't understand that sooner or later they're going to go away.

    The market does have a valuation problem, ... But I don't put much stock in any valuation model, including my own. It's very rational -- it tells you when the stock market is overvalued or undervalued -- but it doesn't work.

    Long term interest rates are higher now than they were in the second and third quarters, and debt levels are higher too. Yes, consumer spending will continue to expand, but it will be slower.

    To some extent everybody is a little exhausted. In the absence of big news we'll see a quieter day. It feels like we were hit by a tidal wave over the past three or four days and today is like the aftermath, picking up the pieces.

    Which doesn't mean it's time to liquidate all positions in large caps. There are reasons why large cap companies have done better, ... What's very intriguing is, that's changing.

    It's coming from southern Canada. We're in that time of year where even Canada is warming up now. We might make a run at 70 by the end of the week.

    It's very hard to make sweeping statements when it comes to technology.

    ultimately extremely good news for the health of the market.

    It's pretty clear that companies have made money and their cash positions are high and this should help the market stage an advance in November and December.

    You had a pretty good move in biotech this year, and biotech really has quite frankly lifted the health care and the drug stocks recently because investors have become somewhat defensive -- say in the last month or so -- and have also, on a relative basis, performed fairly well.

    I see business spending recovering, but not in telecommunications or telecommunications equipment.

    We might get blindsided by some (hedge fund) announcement that nobody's anticipating, ... You worry about another big bolt out of the blue.

    Even though they've bought some stocks this time, they haven't come storming back like they did last October.

    The markets are moving to more reasonably reflect expectations for what lies ahead in 2005.

    There's no news, nothing I see on the immediate horizon, next week, that would shake the market out of its current malaise or end the summer doldrums. There are so many things to worry about, and investors are therefore sitting on their hands, not making any new, major commitments.


    That's the situation today, ... Since that's the case, I'd be more inclined to think this will be a negative year than a positive year.


    That's pretty good news because it means investors did not become defensive. They remain optimistic,

    It's a migration toward value as a reflection that investors believe the growth rates of earnings are slowing. It will continue until investors are convinced that the Fed will take its foot off the break, or reduce interest rates.

    It confirms that as we started the fourth quarter the economy continues to slow, ... At the same time that the economy is slowing, there is ongoing tightness in the labor markets and ongoing upward pressure on wages.

    The fundamental premise in this business is you cannot be stuck in this business. You can buy stocks for the long haul, but if the market breaks down, you're going to suffer. You're going to pay for it.

    These are the really important numbers because they give us a first look at January, and they include leading indicators.

    Like any indicator, whether it's the Super Bowl or anything else, it's sometimes right and sometimes wrong. It's just not very rational to conclude that if January is a bad month, the market will have a bad year.

    If you separate out all the sectors of the market, it's no longer the case that technology is the most overvalued sector of the market, health care and energy actually carry higher valuations than technology now. So we are starting to get the levels overall in technology that really make some sense. And interestingly enough, if you take it even further, if you go to the individual stocks, stocks like Sun, Cisco, Texas Instruments, Oracle -- great names, they're starting to get to levels which, again, don't call them cheap, but call them cheaper and interesting,

    We need to watch the Japanese parliament and see if they do anything about their banking crisis.

    I get worried about so much optimism and the fact that the market is overvalued,

    Financials and consumer non-cyclical stocks also interest Johnson. You look at a company like, say, Washington Mutual, in my judgment a great company, and it's a value play. Remember, investors in this market are looking for low priceearnings ratios and some dividend yield, ... Same thing consumer non-cyclical companies like Pepsi and Safeway I think are good investments in this environment.

    It's very hard to attribute it to an event or release because there is none. I certainly wouldn't attach any significance to it. The professional money managers aren't doing much. They want to take a clear look at third-quarter earnings.

    The stock market has been closely connected to the bond market in the last two weeks, and today's stabilizing interest rates is probably the No. 1 reason behind the gains.

    I think the MA activity is certainly the headline, with Oracle-PeopleSoft and a hangover of Sprint-Nextel. As the acquisitions start to pick up, that's new money coming into the market, which is positive.


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