Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 5, 1994 TAG: 9404050150
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Tyler Pugh, senior vice president and branch manager at Wheat First Butcher Singer Inc., said Monday that his firm's customers are "mostly hanging on and looking for opportunities" to buy bargains.
The heavy trading in recent days has pushed down prices but has all the signs of selling by extremely large institutional investors such as mutual funds, Pugh said. Mutual fund managers must sell when certain levels are reached, he said.
The market, Pugh said, is "influenced by hedging operations," another sign of trading by speculators and large investors.
Pugh said his company thinks there's "a lot of value in the market long-term" for small investors.
Bill Nash said his clients at Scott & Stringfellow Investment Co. are meeting the market drop with "not too much excitement. Everyone seemed calm." The firm received many phone calls, but "no one seemed overly concerned."
Nash said the drop was the market correction everyone had been expecting for six months. Although he expects the bond market to continue dragging down stocks for a while, "we're still very positive long term."
At J.C. Bradford & Co., Roanoke Office Manager Peter Milward noted that "it's never pleasant to see stocks and bonds go down." Still, he said, there was almost no selling among his firm's clients.
Milward said he thinks the market may be off for another two or three months, so it's too early to search for bargains. But he thinks it will recover and interest rates will drop again during the summer.
Robert Kulp, manager of the Roanoke office of A.G. Edwards & Sons, hasn't seen any selling by individual investors. He said his customers have been expecting a correction after a 42-month surge in stock prices.
"Most people are aware of it," Kulp said, but "it isn't affecting our clients that much."
by CNB