MVC has always been one of the weaker players in the market, so it is dangerous to draw too many conclusions from this specific situation, but it does back up our view that these markets are becoming increasingly difficult.

One thing I told our guys is that we are dangerous because we have a lot of players who can shoot the ball. We've been executing well and it showed tonight.

The market would probably be weaker without these concerns.

We'd be very disappointed if one of our players was treated more harshly or more leniently.

If not for the strong earnings, I think the market would be a lot weaker than it is. But that's not enough to lift the market out of a trading range. There's just too much uncertainty for markets to move higher.

The Fed has been on 'autopilot' with its monetary tightening so that even bouts of weaker data, such as we saw after hurricane Katrina, failed to divert the Fed off course. But now, following the minutes of the December meeting, it is clear that policy will become more data dependent.