Subj : Market Action To : All From : Paul Rogers Date : Wed Aug 20 2003 04:58 pm

Today's action continued to reinforce my opinion of the market this
summer.  Good Bull markets DON'T behave this way!

The Street wasn't satisfied with HP/Compaq's earnings report.  You can
guess what happened to the stock.  HPQ's chart for the past week now
looks UGLY--if you want to see what volume indicates, check it out.  The
effect on the DJIA was that as soon as the market opened prices "gapped"
down on very heavy volume.  I dare say some of the other techs got
caught in the downdraft, though I haven't checked.

But then, what to you care, right?  I told you to bail on this puppy
even before the merger happened.  There are a lot of challenges to such
a merger, the effect of failing even one of those is BAD.  It's not even
enough to succeed at them all, you have to do even better than expected
on them all in order to equal the pre-merge expectations.  That ain't
gonna happen.

What decent action there is in the market is in the betting on the
sidelines.  The Advance-Decline line was still positive.  So as you so
often have heard, "this is a stock picker's market."  That's gambling,
not investing--I'll stay with the averages.  Nothing wrong in shopping
around, looking for what might become a good bargain come fall.  [HEY!
Don't use that word!]

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

 __>_      <___      __|_      _<__      __>_      __<_     08/14
 __>_      |___      __|_      <___      __>_      __<_     08/15
 __>_      |___      __|_      _<__      __>_      __|_     08/18
 __>_      |___      __|_      _<__      __>_      __|_     08/19
 _>__      >___      __|_      _<__      __>_      __>_     08/20

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:  08/12/03 S&P:    990
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
.... If ignorance isn't bliss, I don't know what is. ___ MultiMail/MS-DOS v0.35 --- * Origin: The Bare Bones BBS (1:105/360) .