A lot of the gains are due to the earnings story. I think the market can deal with one or two more interest rate hikes and believe that the Fed is not going beyond neutral.

It's going to have to be the third-quarter earnings to save the market.

The market is waiting to see the earnings because that is your first catalyst in the market that can possibly dispel the slower-than-expected growth that the market is anticipating. The market is very split today. People are just looking for reasons to own some things and reasons to sell others.

I think it's the pattern from pre-announcements to earnings ? these are two companies (Motorola, Yahoo!) that have beaten lowered expectations, beating pre-announcements. When you expand that to the Microsoft story, it makes it even more powerful today.

Don't buy your favorite stock until you see the earnings statement. It's better to have the trend with you than guess at a bottom.

There's going to be this flip-flop next week and continually until we get through earnings season, going from earnings to worrying about the economic slowdown and what inflation brings so I think next week is going to be marked by that. We're getting to the point where the market needs good earnings. It needs to have a catalyst to get the growth sector moving again.