Subj : Market Action To : All From : Paul Rogers Date : Fri Jun 20 2003 07:08 pm

Right now I'm thinking the Market is topping.  Hey, I recommended
selling stock a few days ago, in certain circumstances!  So rather than
interpretting the daily action in terms of a continuing bullish trend,
I'm seeing things that reinforce my viewpoint.  We all do that all the
time, and it can be very dangerous if we get out of step.

Today closed basically unchanged, but volume was up 15% above average.
This sort of thing has been happening a lot lately.  What does it mean?
There were buyers in the market, 15% more than average, but that demand
didn't drive prices up--because there were plenty of sellers willing to
satisfy that entire demand at these prices.

Now, one might recognize that as a difference of opinion that some
investors were willing to back up with money.  OK, I'll grant you that
one.  But that's not how Bull Markets work!  In Bull Markets, and even
significant rallies, holders aren't willing to sell--they see themselves
as HOLDERS with more significant profits yet to come--and buyers must
bid up prices to get the stock they want.

Now, it makes a difference who is who. Professionals usually do better
than amateurs.  Even if the Market isn't taking names, can we make some
educated guesses from the progress of the Market?  Since we're just
coming off a bottom in a major Bear Market which arguably has driven
uncommitted investors from the Market, my thesis is the current sellers
are mostly the professionals who HAVE been in the Market and have very
nice short term profits.  If Main Street investors are selling, it's
those who (as I suggested a few days ago) have decided to finally sell
stuff they shouldn't have been holding a year ago--they see the best
chance they've had in months and they're taking it.

That still doesn't tell us what the Market is going to do, just the
biases of investor attitudes.  But those attitudes can create
self-fulfilling prophecies.

Earlier we saw a Market that seemed to ignore bad news.  Lately we've
seen the Market has become more sensitive to daily news reports.  What
the Market does now is going to depend a lot on news about the economy,
hence future earnings.  That's why I'm NOT predicting with ready sellers
the Market is finally going to give us the correction many have been
expecting.  But in the absence of lots of good news, too many sellers
can put a kibosh on this rally.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it--until the Market shows me
another story.

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

 __>_      __>_      ___>      _<__      __|_      ___>     06/16
 __>_      __>_      ___>      __<_      __<_      ___>     06/17
 _>__      __>_      __>_      _<__      _<__      ___>     06/18
 _|__      __<_      __>_      __|_      _<__      ___|     06/19
 __<_      _<__      __>_      __|_      _<__      ___|     06/20

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
.... Nobody expects a fannish imposition! ___ MultiMail/MS-DOS v0.35 --- * Origin: The Bare Bones BBS (1:105/360) .