Quotes by David Blitzer

“A change of 7% or 8% in estimated earnings for the S&P 500 is significant, especially if investors are not fully aware of what caused the change.”

“This is a year of unusually low S&P index turnover due to the low number of mergers and acquisitions in the large-cap sector. So we are making the change at a time when the impact on index investors will be minimized.”

“Clearly, if we take a stock out at $2, and 6 months later its trading at $10, we look silly and people who invest in the index will say, I missed a five-times gain. But in talking to people who run index funds, the vast majority of managers say take the low-priced stocks out,”

“Increasingly, companies would pretty much write their own accounting rules when they put together their earnings releases. We said to ourselves, lets figure out how to do this the right way so the earnings number really tells us something about whats going on and the number is consistent from company to company.”

“The problem is that instead of having one way to calculate corporate earnings that everybody understands, we have two or three methods. And the one that most people use, there is virtually no agreement at all about what it means.”

“Its just a lack of consistency. Companies change the definition quarter to quarter, whichever looks best - thats not a reasonable way to do business.”

“[It was] a good deal better than expected and I think very encouraging.”

“The stock market reaction, if they cut a quarter point, probably will be as much a yawn as anything else. If the Fed would go for half a point, which is within the realm of possibility, I think it would get a positive reaction.”

“Were in for another year of slow movement [in the stock market]. It increasingly will have an upward bias, but it wont go through the roof.”

“The employment data showed a lot of weakness,”