As we get closer to the potential March 17 deadline, people who think we're going to get a wartime rally may try to get ahead of it, but I think any sort of rally we get will be short-lived.
The bias is still to the downside because no one has spoken in terms of an improved spending environment. The [second-quarter] estimates were fairly high with double-digit earnings growth built into a lot of the models. Without spending picking up, we think estimates have to come down, therefore the valuations come down and the stock prices come down.
It looks like they're still getting some halo effect.
They've had a very good run, year-to-date, and we're probably selling into the strength. There's no indication that there's going to be the second-half pick-up that's currently priced into the valuations.
We're getting pretty decent earnings across the board. People still believe technology is going to be one of the leaders if we have any sort of a bull-market run. Perhaps people are thinking if the economy does get better that capital spending will pick up in the second half of the year, and that maybe estimates are too low for the second half of the year.
Expectations on Wall Street got way ahead (of themselves).
They're going up against strong financially well established companies. In cell phones, they're going up against Nokia and in gaming they're going up against Sony. It's not a given that Microsoft will be able to succeed in all these new areas.
The stock trade about 17.5 times 2003 earnings. That's at a premium compared with the other apparel companies out there but it's also growing faster than the other companies.
Victor hasn't undertaken any major transactions of his own. I'd feel more comfortable if he had a track record of closing deals.
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