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90 Seconds with Art Cashin: Greek Deal Not Affecting Markets Yet

09 Feb 2012

CNBC's Bob Pisani and Art Cashin, of UBS, discuss the markets' lack of response to the Greek deal. Cashin asks what will happen when the election comes around in April, as Greeks are already crying about austerity.

90 Seconds with Art Cashin: Can Draghi Help Greece? 08 Feb 2012
CNBC's Bob Pisani and Art Cashin, of UBS, discuss the market drop and concerns the ECB's Draghi may not be able to help Greece.

90 Seconds with Art Cashin: Bernanke's Sigh of Relief Rally

07 Feb 2012

CNBC's Bob Pisani and Art Cashin, of UBS, discuss a down dollar, the up euro and the reasons behind the mini rally. People are realizing Greece doesn't have a payment due till March, and after Bernanke's testimony, there was a sigh of relief rally.

Cramer: 'Where's the SEC' on 'Absurd' IPO?

07 Feb 2012

CNBC's Jim Cramer, David Faber and Bob Pisani discuss the planned $18 million IPO of Caesars Entertainment. Cramer calls it absurd, and asks, "Where¿s the SEC?"

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90 Seconds with Art Cashin: Greek Deal Not Affecting Markets Yet

09 Feb 2012

90 Seconds with Art Cashin: Can Draghi Help Greece? 08 Feb 2012
CNBC's Bob Pisani and Art Cashin, of UBS, discuss the market drop and concerns the ECB's Draghi may not be able to help Greece.

90 Seconds with Art Cashin: Bernanke's Sigh of Relief Rally

07 Feb 2012

Cramer: 'Where's the SEC' on 'Absurd' IPO?

07 Feb 2012

CNBC's Jim Cramer, David Faber and Bob Pisani discuss the planned $18 million IPO of Caesars Entertainment. Cramer calls it absurd, and asks, "Where¿s the SEC?"

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CEOs Seeing Improvement Around The Globe

Published: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 | 2:20 PM ET

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By: Bob Pisani
Reporter

Stocks started the day strong, gave up much of their gains midday as financials, retailers, and housing stocks sold off, and have now been making a modest comeback.

However, commodity stocks are still up notably, and in fact Materials have now stolen the Best Performing Sector of the Year spot from Tech:

S&P leaders YTD
Materials up 17.0%
Information Technology up 16.8%
Consumer Discretionary up 7.6%
Energy down 0.7%
Financials down 4.4%

Source: S&P

Despite today's weakness ex-commodities, there has been an unmistakable tone of modest optimism from many CEOs in the last 24 hours. They are far from bullish, but the tone of despair and uncertainty evident in the first quarter is gone.

Consider these comments:

1) Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis: "I think the worst is most likely behind us."

2) Union Pacific CEO Jim Young: Freight volumes have "stabilized," but economic recovery is not expected until next year

3) Analog Devices CEO Jerald Fishman: Orders "recovered significantly" last quarter and "were stable throughout the second quarter" and into May.

4) Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang: "It definitely seems the market has bottomed out and demand seems to be growing again"

5) Verizon CFO John Killian: "I think we've seen some (economic) stabilization. We really don't see it getting a lot worse, but we haven't seen it pick up at this point."

6) Air France-KLM CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon: "Signs of a stabilization in our operating environment" have appeared in recent weeks.

7) World Bank President Robert Zoellick: "I believe we are likely to see the rate of decline lessen."

AFTERNOON NEWSMAKERS