Subj : Market Action To : All From : Paul Rogers Date : Fri Sep 05 2003 06:43 pm

Well, today's action wasn't so great.  There was an employment report
that jobs continued to fall.  That gave the Street an excuse to sell and
take profits.  But it wasn't terrible.  Volume was up +16% though.

We hear a lot about about the "summer doldrums".  One thing that is
noticable in my numbers is the change of volume this week.  Last week
volume was -26%, -9%, -17%, -8% and -23% below average.  In the 4 days
this week, +16%, +31%, +15%, and +16% above average.  That's a pretty
noticable difference.

But like the dog in the night, it's what you don't see that's worth
commenting on here.  I didn't mash those numbers, say, averaging them.
We often use averages and comparisons to averages as a mental aid to
understanding.  That's dangerous.  You can't average percentages like
that.  Mathematically the result is meaningless.

What you need to do is go back to the original numbers.  In this case,
one right way to look at it might be to sum the volumes: 5280Ms in the 5
days last week, 5983Ms in the 4 days this week.  Now we could average
those to account for the difference in time, 1056Ms/day vs 1496Ms/day.

You're likely to see that mistake in quick news reports.  It probably
won't be made in things like mutual fund reports, those are examined
pretty closely to make sure they aren't misleading.  But you might see a
list of percentage returns compared to the market returns, and be
tempted to mentally average them.  Don't do that.

And one other thing.  Averages don't mean much anyway.  Admit it, the
thing you really want to know from all these numbers is that's going to
happen in the future!  The past may be prolog, but it doesn't predict
the future.

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

 __>_      >___      __|_      <___      __>_      ___>     08/29
 __>_      _>__      __|_      __<_      ___>      ___>     09/02
 __>_      _>__      __|_      ___|      ___>      ___>     09/03
 __>_      _>__      __>_      __|_      ___>      ___>     09/04
 _>__      _>__      __>_      __>_      __|_      ___>     09/05

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
.... Teachers don't like thinkers--they ask too many questions ___ MultiMail/MS-DOS v0.35 --- * Origin: The Bare Bones BBS (1:105/360) .