[prewett]

This is pretty normal for the start of a downturn. There's probably a bunch of forced vacation going on (or will be), too. I remember a lot of that from the healthier companies in the 2002 time frame and a friend of mine at a more hardware-oriented company told me his company is doing that.

[kjkjadksj]

People were saying this was the start of the downturn when layoffs happened last year then the spy moved up 100 pts since.

[prewett]

Despite what EMT fundamentalists will tell you, the stock market is only loosely correlated with fundamentals and 100 pts is nothing. Besides, there's no reason a company's profit _must_ decline during a downturn: for example, if they perfectly predict the downturn and reduce expenses (like laying people off) just before it hits.