The news out of the U.S. the past few weeks is clearly dollar positive.

It's a positive indication, because there haven't been any signs of a pickup in the past two years. What they're seeing is a division of a company saying 'let's get 10 of these for our group,' and that's a small segment of their business.

The market reflected losses on foreign exchanges. We're waiting for positive news. We did not have any large sellers. I expect the market to recover next week after this week's fall.

I continue to believe that locally, we continue to benefit from a positive bounce in shipyard-related news (despite) higher gasoline prices and other national news that might cause people to be cautious.

Acquisition news is quite positive because it indicates a looking-ahead and willing-to-spend mentality. This expansion is 2-1/2 years old and the consumer has more than done his or her part. Now is the time you need corporations to be willing to spend their very good earnings and their tremendous cash balances.

Investors decided to book profits on recent positive news from Volkswagen and solid car registration figures.