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.
Niche players can have one bad quarter and they don't have the wherewithal to survive that, or at least survive it easily.
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.
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.
Overall, we'll probably see a continuation of the choppy nature of the market, probably with a slight downward bias.
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.
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.
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.
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