If you believe this a secular story then you should ignore cyclical swings. The banks may have bad quarters every now and then but so what?

Midwestern banks are accustomed to shifts in the local economies. They plan for it. However, they do not avoid it. They get hurt. Their loan losses rise. Their earnings tumble and their stock prices are impacted. It will happen again.

There are not a lot of opportunities in tech that are wholly secular plays as opposed to cyclical plays, ... This is a great company and a great stock.

I believe that the current dollar adjustment is cyclical.

The industry is out there building branches at an extremely active clip -- a new one is slated to open every 2-1/2 hours until the end of 2005. Bank margins will have to come back down to support the increased cost of running all those branches.

In general, this should be a mixed quarter, ... Clearly, M&A is strong but the IPO market has slowed down, the equity market is weakening and the fixed income market is limping along.