The firming is once again the case of one or two stocks as is the case on the downside. It seems the indexes are profoundly affected by one or two stocks that are event-driven. Today it is Microsoft.

You've got a bubble in bonds. There is a panic to buy debt just like there was a panic to buy stocks in 1999.

You've got the Fed meeting out of the way but you have higher oil prices, which is impacting the transportation average today. As far as oil is concerned, you're coming into the heating oil season and inventories are down. I think that weighed upon (Fed chairman) Greenspan's cautionary bias.

If he (Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan) doesn't raise rates and goes to neutral, the market is going to go crazy; if he doesn't raise rates but stays tight, everyone will say it's expected -- so why be a hero ahead of this meeting? ... I expect he's going to do nothing and maintain a very vigilant bias. I think he's going to be on the (lookout) for inflation.

In the past three to four sessions, investors have been getting back into tech stocks. The movement is out of drugs and oils and into Internets.

It's amazing how investors penalize IBM ( IBM : Research , Estimates ) for the progress they've made over the last few years, ... And, yet they'll pay 100 times revenue for other companies. The second half of this year, it looks very good, very strong for IBM's businesses. I'd continue to buy IBM for portfolios here.

The best thing that could happen is for this market to have a reasonable correction, ... I would have thought we would have had one a long time ago.

It's a very tentative-type market where people are going to opt for safety and wait it out. I think there's just a lack of conviction here.

It's just money circulating among the same groups.

There's a lot of uncertainty with these deals. You've got Congressional investigations that will take place. Foreigners come in and Congress will take a really close look at it.