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Wall Street is feeling the impact of bad weather. Above, George Washington's statue near the NYSE. Bloomberg News

"Can we stop talking about the weather?"

That plaintive cry from U.S.: NYSE ^$27.10 +0.24 +0.89% Feb. 20, 2014 12:15 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 83,634 P/E Ratio 17.49 Market Cap $2.85 Billion Dividend Yield 3.69% Rev. per Employee $626,509 in Your Value Your Change Short position analysts in their weekly email to clients Tuesday echoed the feeling of many weary traders and investors over the past few weeks.

But the brutal freeze affecting much of the U.S. presents more than just fodder for idle small talk in financial markets these days. It also presents an unexpected conundrum for many investors: Will the subzero wind chills and snowstorms have a lasting effect on the economy? And if so, which stocks should investors buy and sell?

"The amount of conversations with clients about this weather theme has reached a fever pitch," said Joseph Spinelli, who heads cash equity trading for the Americas at 's Germany: Xetra ^€35.25 -0.31 -0.87% Feb. 20, 2014 5:35 pm Volume : 7.42M P/E Ratio 29.87 Market Cap €36.25 Billion Dividend Yield 2.13% Rev. per Employee €325,100 02/20/14 02/19/14 02/19/14 in Your Value Your Change Short position New York office.

For Mr. Spinelli, that has meant being in regular contact with the bank's own energy analysts—who are plugged into the weather because of its impact on commodity prices—for insights into historical weather patterns and their impact on certain sectors. "It's the topic du jour," he said.

The weather has been blamed for two weak jobs reports in a row as well as poor retail sales, construction and manufacturing data. With plenty of winter left, the weather could be a factor to contend with for weeks, or even months, before any distortions are reversed.

For now, many investors take the view that those weak economic trends will reverse when the thaw comes. But for others, the cold snap has been a reason to change gears in portfolios that had been betting on stronger economic growth.

Huntington Asset Advisors Inc. has been cutting back exposure to subsectors like auto makers, glass manufacturers and home builders because of the weather, said Randy Bateman, chief investment officer. Huntington has been selling shares of those stocks or hedging against declines with options strategies, he said.

"The weather is going to affect auto sales, retail sales, employment…it's certainly going to affect the housing area," said Mr. Bateman, whose firm manages $14.5 billion in Columbus, Ohio.

One result of the bad weather has been the kind of blizzard seen only on Wall Street: research reports. Deutsche Bank this week published a report titled, "Winter's Worst Puts Pessimists in Full Bloom." France: Paris ^€58.52 +0.14 +0.24% Feb. 20, 2014 5:38 pm Volume : 3.33M P/E Ratio 13.90 Market Cap €72.69 Billion Dividend Yield 2.56% Rev. per Employee €492,530 02/19/14 02/14/14 02/13/14 in Your Value Your Change Short position currency strategists joined in on Tuesday, saying the U.S. dollar outlook "remains clouded by weather."

's U.S.: NYSE ^$29.07 +0.12 +0.40% Feb. 20, 2014 12:16 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 5.46M P/E Ratio 20.21 Market Cap $56.32 Billion Dividend Yield 0.69% Rev. per Employee $645,765 02/19/14 02/19/14 02/17/14 in Your Value Your Change Short position economic group, meanwhile, last week attempted to estimate what economic growth would look like were it not for the bad weather.

"The geographic and intramonth granularity in our primary datasets suggest a meaningful drag from weather in many key economic series," they wrote. The firm's "counterfactual" estimates included pending home sales rising 7.8% in January instead of 0.2% and retail sales gaining 0.5% excluding gasoline and auto sales, instead of declining 0.2%.

The weather has loomed large for investors because many started 2014 with high expectations for the economy. Many tilted their portfolios toward stocks that stood to benefit from a continued upswing in growth. Fed officials, too, expressed optimism about the economy as they have started to pare back their stimulus efforts.

That means a lot rides on whether the weather really is behind the U.S. economy's chill.

Eric Stein, co-director of the $13 billion global income group at Corp. U.S.: NYSE ^$36.71 -0.63 -1.69% Feb. 20, 2014 12:16 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 198,723 P/E Ratio 20.61 Market Cap $4.54 Billion Dividend Yield 2.40% Rev. per Employee $1,063,330 02/19/14 02/19/14 02/13/14 in Your Value Your Change Short position , said for now, he and his team in Boston are treating the weather as "noise." He said some of the obsession with the weather stems simply from the financial-services sector's being concentrated in hard-hit areas like New York and other parts of the Northeast.

"To some extent, the people who are in the financial business kind of overextrapolate what's happening to them to everyone else," he said.

Eric Marshall, portfolio manager with the $1.8 billion Hodges Funds, decided to try and take advantage of that noise. He bought shares of cement and concrete maker Inc. U.S.: NYSE ^$83.81 -0.59 -0.70% Feb. 20, 2014 12:15 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 116,569 P/E Ratio 37.63 Market Cap $4.22 Billion Dividend Yield 0.48% Rev. per Employee $482,011 in Your Value Your Change Short position as the shares slid after the company reported that fourth-quarter earnings and sales fell short of analysts' forecasts.

Mr. Marshall said the cold weather likely weighed on demand for building materials such as cement and he expects sales to rebound in the spring. "Weather…is temporary in nature [and] usually creates a good buying opportunity," he said.

Even for some traders in the energy markets, where prices routinely rise and fall based on expectations for winter heating demand, the weather-driven swings have been wearing.

Natural-gas futures have not only surged this winter, they have also been highly volatile. So far this year, they have moved at least 5% during 13 trading sessions. of $6.149 per million British thermal units Wednesday.

Jaya Bajpai, executive director of Applied Energy Analytics LLC, a Boston money-management and energy consulting firm, often places bets on the short-term direction of natural-gas prices. But the huge and erratic price swings have led him to back off.

"There are many ways for me to give myself heartburn, and trading a commodity that is going up and down 10% every day based solely on the latest weather model is not my preferred way of generating heartburn," he said.

Write to Alexandra Scaggs at