She expects 2001 to beat 1999 and 2000 as business years. Hrycyk is seeing a different kind of client - those who realize they need more diversification. Bob Rathbun, vice president-investments with A.G. Edwards and Sons, said the state of the economy is not the controlling factor in his business. Normally when you see something fall in price, you buy it. When people see stock prices fall, they think they'll fall further.
People go into a defense mode.
They may buy bonds or other products perceived to be safer than stocks. So until about June of last year, most of my business was coming from stocks. Then when the market started going down, I started selling more bonds the last half of the year. Customers like to wait and see what's going to happen. That's human nature.