A change of 7% or 8% in estimated earnings for the S
David Blitzer
change
This is a year of unusually low S
Clearly, if we take a stock out at, and 6 months later it's trading at 0, we look silly and people who invest in the index will say, 'I missed a five-times gain'. But in talking to people who run index funds, the vast majority of managers say take the low-priced stocks out
majority people talking run silly managers
Increasingly, companies would pretty much write their own accounting rules when they put together their earnings releases. We said to ourselves, let's figure out how to do this the right way so the earnings number really tells us something about what's going on and the number is consistent from company to company.
rules write company pretty
The problem is that instead of having one way to calculate corporate earnings that everybody understands, we have two or three methods. And the one that most people use, there is virtually no agreement at all about what it means.
people problem corporate agreement
It's just a lack of consistency. Companies change the definition quarter to quarter, whichever looks best - that's not a reasonable way to do business.
consistency change business definition lack
[It was] a good deal better than expected and I think very encouraging.
encouraging good
The stock market reaction, if they cut a quarter point, probably will be as much a yawn as anything else. If the Fed would go for half a point, which is within the realm of possibility, I think it would get a positive reaction.
positive possibility market reaction realm
We're in for another year of slow movement [in the stock market]. It increasingly will have an upward bias, but it won't go through the roof.
movement bias
The employment data showed a lot of weakness
weakness data employment
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