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American Morning

America Recovers: Stocks Probably Will Be Unpredictable For A While

Aired October 10, 2001 - 09:29   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 ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: You know what that means U.S. Markets are open. Off and running, the stock slipped a little bit, Tuesday, with the Dow down about 15 points: 9,052 the Nasdaq also dropped about 35 points, on the day.

Our man, Andy Serwer joins us, he's from Fortune magazine, to give preview of what we might expect, later today. Good morning, how are you?

ANDY SERWER, FORTUNE MAGAZINE: How are you doing, Paula. We got kind of a mixed open, the futures are down. The Nikkei and the Hang Seng were down, about a half percent. Europe was up a bit, and the big U.S. stocks were up moderately in Frankfurt, but I don't look for a lot of action. Let me paint a little scenario for you, here.

ZAHN: Paint it well.

SERWER: I will. You got a Wall Street trader. Could be a guy, could be a gal. I'm not going to fall for that, again, with you.

ZAHN: You are so good.

SERWER: You can't drive to work, anymore. He has to carpool. He gets to the New York Stock Exchange. Security is extra tight. It takes him a long time to get to work-- I forget to tell you, his neighbor got laid off last night because he works for Credit Suisse First Boston. They laid off thousands of people. He turns on CNN. The anthrax might come from Iowa, you know, the Taliban is threatening him on the TV. He opens up the New York Times, we might have to go into the Phillipines and Indonesia. Meanwhile, the choppers going to Afghanistan. He starts trading, there's no volume, there are no trends. So, you got a guy down there who is kind of directionless, clueless and not terribly happy. Right?

ZAHN: Yeah, but how many guys and gals are like that, down there this morning?

SERWER: They're like that. They're all like that. Trading was anemic, yesterday. There are no directions, there are no trends. But in a way, there's a good side to that, because instead of watching the markets now, I think you have to watch stocks. And you look at companies like Pepsico, which announced some good news, SunTrust, Harley Davidson. Your going to have to turn to companies, and look at their stories, rather than look at the indexes, because they are all over the place, I think, for quite a while, now.

ZAHN: And so these are three stocks you've just mentioned we should keep eye on, today.

SERWER: I that's right. Also, Microsoft, because the EU may be fining them, A company called Septid, a company that is a biodefense stock, that has tests against bioagents, also Yahoo! ...

ZAHN: And you'd expect the stock, in this environment, to do okay?

SERWER: Yes, absolutely. That stock was up 80%, yesterday, was up 20% in pre-market trading.

ZAHN: 80 percent!

SERWER: Absolutely, I mean this stock is flying. Yahoo! is hot. Polaroid may be going bankrupt. So you have to look at these companies' stories, rather than the indexes, going forward, I think.

ZAHN: Well we will be attempting to do that this morning, now that you advised us to do so. Andy Serwer, as always, it's good to have you with us, in the mornings.

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