"We like to focus on companies that can grow their earnings in good and bad markets," he said.

"Sometimes people like to go out, so sometimes a bad market doesn't hurt much," he said.

"I could have had a job under construction and coming on now, into a bad market," he said.

They said the availability of good deals in a bad market is the driving force.

He said fund companies were likely concerned about losing shareholders in a bad market for stocks.

"In the world of supply and demand, it is not a bad market."

It's not modernism, but the bad market that has kept it from selling.

Purchasing magazine called 2002 the worst market for metal service centers in 20 years.

Like other retailers we wondered how to make the best of a bad market.

But even in a bad market some firms do better than others.