Take on the ticker

Janna Sampson of Lisle is a founding partner of OakBrook Investments, with $1.3 billion under management.What was this week like on the markets? "This week has been a difficult one for the stock market. The market is down 3 percent, as of Friday morning. It fell on sub-prime mortgage concerns, as well as concerns that the sub-prime mortgage losses are spreading wider into the economy.What accounted for the big downturns in the market last week?"I think the big downturns we saw in the market (last) week were being driven by the uncertainty about how bad the housing crisis is and how bad the mortgage crisis is and how much of that is going to spread into the rest of the economy.Haven't economic reports been mixed?"We have gotten economic reports saying there really isn't a problem outside the financial sector. And then, occasionally, we get something like Cisco Systems' earnings report which says the reason they didn't go up was because of a lack of sales to finance companies and this problem will spread. The problem is nobody really knows yet how far this might spread and how weak it might make economic growth."Why did tech stocks fall this week? "The fall (started) after Cisco Systems reported earnings, that were widely expected to be an upside surprise. But Cisco just met what analysts expected and the market view was that it was a disappointment #8230; that led that market down, with Cisco down about 10 percent. I suspect it was an overreaction."What did you think of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's statements on the economy?"Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said he's worried about the worst of all scenarios -- slowing growth and rising inflation coupled together. That is not a pretty picture for the U.S. economy #8230; Mr. Bernanke said he's expecting a dramatic slowing in growth. I think most economists would agree with him there. We're looking at growth at below 2 percent in the first quarter after a 3.9 percent growth number in the last quarter. And with rising commodity prices, we're looking at inflation beginning to surge."What might move markets this week?"If we look at next week, the market will continue to focus on the mortgage situation. On Tuesday, we'll get the pending home sales numbers. On Wednesday, we'll follow up with mortgage application numbers. So both of those numbers have the potential to be pretty weak."