Subj : Market Action To : All From : Paul Rogers Date : Wed Sep 01 2004 06:16 pm


"I know what it says.  What does it mean?"

Today after some ping-ponging at the open prices rose a bit through the
morning.  At 1PM there was a news flash that people had been sickened in
a Washington DC office building.  Terrorism was immediately suspected
and the market fell like a rock on very heavy volume.  About 15 minutes
later it was revealed as a prank and the market quickly recovered most
of its losses.  But the "mood" was broken and throughout the afternoon
prices never regained their morning highs.  Volume rose a little, not
surprizing with that heavy sell-off, but was still -11% below average.

This is just the latest evidence that now the market is news driven.
Certainly a terrorism incident in the USA isn't good news.  But my
question is: if investors had faith in the long term strength and
recovery of the economy, that the market was bound for new highs in the
forseeable future, would they be this jumpy?  Would the trend for this
year's trading range be falling?  Would we have seen the heaviest
individual and sustained volume periods for the year coming during the
corrections of January, March, April-May, and July?  No, the Street
isn't buying the Rosey Scenario, as I read the charts.

To be fair, while it's easy now to look back on the last two decades of
the 20th Century and see a Super Bull Market that charged higher with
unprecedented strength, while it was happening we had our days.  There
was the Crash of '87, major difficulties with the South East Asian
currency crisis, and when Russia defaulted on its loans.

I can't foretell the future, and neither can anybody else--even if they
are in a position to manipulate things to try to make certain things
happen.  But my positions are exceptionally conservative, and they're
going to stay that way.

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

 __>_     __>_     __|_     <___     __|_     ___>     08/26
 __>_     __>_     __|_     <___     ___>     ___>     08/27
 _|__     __|_     __|_     <___     __|_     ___>     08/30
 __|_     __|_     __|_     _<__     __|_     ___>     08/31
 __|_     __|_     __|_     _<__     ___|     ___>     09/01

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:  08/24/04 S&P:    1096
Winner or Loser:  tbd                   By:     tbd

See my market tracking charts for '02-'03 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

Paul Rogers, paulgrogers@yahoo.com -o) http://www.angelfire.com/or/paulrogers /\\ Rogers' Second Law: Everything you do communicates. _\_V .... We [0Me !U EACe. GVe uf YOUg AmM0UiA o+ Die. ___ MultiMail/MS-DOS v0.35 --- * Origin: The Bare Bones BBS (1:105/360) .