“The crisis in the Middle East has caused a heightened risk aversion amongst investors. They are worried the fighting will weigh on government budgets, travel, leisure as well as profit growth.”
“The key is going to be the turn-around in industrial production. When we see that, that will give some possibility of upward revisions in earnings in the second half of the fiscal year. I think the market will become much more relaxed again about the economy.”
“Even the Japanese are not that happy with the yen constantly weakening. Apart from anything else, it makes the management look rather silly if they've invested a great deal of time and money in overseas production. Suddenly, they don't need it two or three years later.”
“It's incredibly quiet at the moment, ... Foreigners are starting to go into Christmas mode and Europeans especially are winding down trading ahead of the introduction of the euro.”
“There was a lot of weakness in some of the banks in particular, ... There was a bit of reaction by foreigners to the Nippon Credit Bank liquidation or whatever it was at the weekend.”
“[Nortel's warning is] bad news for the (telecom) hardware sector and will hurt the likes of Ericsson and Nokia, ... valuations are close to the bottom for this year.”
