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American Morning

America's New War: Outlook for Today's Market

Aired September 18, 2001 - 09:04   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAUN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's revisit now some of what those traders might face and some of what you investors out there might face today when the markets open in just about 25 minutes from now.

Joining us again, Andy Serwer of "Fortune" magazine, who has a lot of important information to share with us this morning.

Before we get into the minutia of trading, very quickly off the top, were there any breakdowns of communication systems yesterday?

ANDREW SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Really none that we learned of. There were -- trading was very, very smooth, and I think that was a huge victory for the stock exchange, for traders, for Wall Street. I heard of some slowdowns for retail investors trying to get trades done. One person told me he was having a hard time getting trades executed by Charles Schwab, but he was ultimately able to do that. And that sort of thing is to be expected anyway on a very heavy volume day like we had.

ZAUN: OK. Walk us through the paces, the market opens at 9:30, what's the first thing we'll probably see? You talk about the volatility of the airline stocks. You also talked about media stocks taking a hit yesterday?

SERWER: That's right, media stocks taking a hit because of the perception that the ad market is weakening. I think an overarching point here, with the exception of airlines, which is such a different situation right now, is that any business that was having difficulty before these attacks, the problems are going to be exacerbated.

The media stocks were actually under pressure a little bit before this. The economy was slowing down, let's remember that, Paula, and this is only going to slow the economy down further. I don't think there is any question about that. You are seeing companies talking about weakening results, companies like GE, companies like Computer Associate, JB Hunt, the trucking company this morning, and so those companies are going to be under pressure as Wall Street traders try to sort out exactly how weak those numbers are going to be and how weak their earnings are going to be going forward.

ZAUN: OK, Andy, we're going to come back to you throughout the morning, particularly once that opening bell is rung.

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