Subj : Market Action To : All From : Paul Rogers Date : Mon Dec 29 2003 05:26 pm

Looks like this is our Santa Claus Rally.  Prices moved nicely higher,
although volume was well below average, -16%.

Normally I'd be pretty strict about calling that a "bearish divergence".
However, with a half-day trading Wednesday and Friday, if'n I were a
Street investor I'd be putting it on autopilot and taking these two days
off--let the skeleton crew handle it.  So we have to look elsewhere for
answers to our "Didja mean it?" question.

What volume there was tended to spike when prices shot up--that's
positive.  The up-volume to down-volume ratio ran something like 8:1.
That's also positive.  The Advance Decline ratio was something like 3:1,
and that's also positive.  And finally, while our markets were observing
holidays, that's not true worldwide.  So when the market was open there
was some readjustment of arbitrage accounts to keep all the markets in
balance.

So given my caveat that low volume rallies boost market capitalization,
often without the necessary under-pinnings, and leave it vulnerable to
swift correction (my support line is down at 1083 today), it seems
today's action really does reveal a Bullish bias in investors.  Let's
see what they think in January.  In the mean time, this looks like a
good time to sell losers and disappointments.

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

 __>_      _|__      __>_      _|__      __|_      ___>     12/23
 __>_      _|__      __>_      _|__      __|_      ___>     12/23
 _|__      _|__      __>_      <___      __|_      ___>     12/24
 __|_      _|__      __>_      <___      __|_      ___>     12/26
 __>_      _>__      __>_      _<__      __|_      ___>     12/29

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:  11/24/03 S&P:    1052
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
.... Every absurdity has a champion to defend it. ___ MultiMail/MS-DOS v0.35 --- * Origin: The Bare Bones BBS (1:105/360) .