Subj : Market Action To : All From : Paul Rogers Date : Mon Apr 07 2003 05:40 pm

I typically watch PBS' "Nightly Business Report".  The "Market Monitor"
they had on Friday only said one thing I agree with, that consumer debt
refinancing has been largely responsible for holding the economy up and
that to really improve the economy corporate spending has to carry its
fair share of the load.  He has shorted the Market in the fund he
manages.  He pointed to a long history of PE ratios and Price/Dividend
Ratios to justify his claim that the Market is over-priced.  Several
times I've covered the dividend thing--in short, corporations get a
better bang for their earnings buck by expanding, rather than paying
dividends.  As for the rest, I don't know what reasonable valuation for
the Market should be now, but I'm reasonably sure comparisons to several
decades ago aren't.  In short, decades ago there was such a thing as
"the US economy," now there isn't.  It's apples and oranges.

This morning I heard a story on the radio about people wanting to
boycott French and German products.  Heinneken?  Nope, Dutch.  Grey
Poupon?  Made in the USA for over 50 years.  Dannon yogurt?  OK, French
parent company, but manufactured in the USA from American dairy farmers'
milk!  I'm not carrying any brief for the conspiracy theorist kooks, but
it's all over.  The fact is that globalization has unified the world
economy. Mexico and Malaysia are seeing jobs disappear into China.  Look
at the charts of all the world's stock exchanges.  Adjusted for scale,
they're all mirrors of the NYSE.  The days when you could buffer youself
from US recessions by investing 10-15% abroad are gone.

With interest rates so low, the stock market is the only game in town.
That's why he doesn't see investors pulling their retirement money out
of mutual funds.  Forget four "estates" (clergy, nobility, populace, and
journalists), the fifth estate, business corporations, is more powerful
than them all.  If it isn't clear to you that corporations are as
powerful as states in the real world, you're dreaming.  We have to align
our retirement future as business owners, with Wall Street not against
it.

The Market today?  It had a decent rally in the morning, pulled back and
stabilised through mid-day, but gave it all back into the close.  Volume
was only up about +4% above average, but Up-Volume was about 2:1 higher
than Down-Volume.

Price     Vola-     Momen-    Volume    Oscil-    Summ.
Change    tility    tum                 lator     Index
 -__+      -__+      -__+      -__+      -__+      -__+

 __<_      __|_      __|_      __|_      __|_      __>_     04/01
 __|_      __|_      __|_      __>_      __|_      __>_     04/02
 _>__      __|_      __|_      __>_      __|_      __>_     04/03
 __>_      __|_      __>_      _>__      __>_      __>_     04/04
 __>_      __<_      __>_      __>_      __|_      __>_     04/07

Timing Signals:  I don't use or recommend timing signals, but they're
fun to watch.  If I did though, well, I might use something like this.
(Be warned!!  It tends to whipsaw around signal points!)

Last Signal: BUY        Date:  04/01/03 S&P:    858
Winner or Loser:  tbd                   By:     tbd

See my market tracking charts for '01-'02 and my investment strategy
study at my website(s):
http://www.xprt.net/~pgrogers/Pers.html
http://www.angelfire.com/or/paulrogers/Pers.html
http://www.geocities.com/paulgrogers/Pers.html
.... I'm almost certain Heisenberg was correct. ___ MultiMail/MS-DOS v0.35 --- * Origin: The Bare Bones BBS (1:105/360) .