Subj : Market Action To : All From : Paul Rogers Date : Fri Mar 18 2005 06:07 pm Content-type: text/plain Lest you think yesterday's commentary was just a political diatribe, consider this news report from this morning: LONDON (Reuters) - World oil prices came off all-time highs on Friday after this week's bull run but remained strong on fears of a supply crunch later this year. Prices in New York and London raced to all-time highs this week as traders shrugged off OPEC pledges for extra supply and doubted whether inventory levels and flagging crude output were enough to satisfy the world's seemingly unquenchable oil thirst. ... There are key words there: "fears", "traders shrugged off", "and doubted", "world's ... unquenchable ... thirst". Prices now are not being driven by objective scarcity of a physical resource, but by an emotional bubble in the trading pits. It's just market speculation. That is not to say that excessive consumption isn't a legitimate issue--Chaiman Mao's Beijing now has an off-road Jeep Club, fer chrysakes. There's no question the whole third-world cannot become American-style consumers. Hello! Natural resources are important. There's going to be more competition, i.e. higher prices. There are investing opportunities there. We also need to plan for the added expense. Money and politics often go hand-in-hand. Money is known as "the mother's milk of politics." As much as possible we must filter politics out of our investment analysis and decision making. There's an old aphorism, "when money speaks, the truth keeps silent." We need to get beyond all the hype and claims, and get a grasp on investing reality. Have we forgotten what happened in the 90's? Got any KKD (Krispy Kreme Donuts)? Got any JDSU? Yesterday's commentary wasn't about politics, oil, ANWR, conservation, or any such thing! It was about keeping open-minded enough to be a little skeptical, asking good questions and objectively persuing answers. You are the beneficiary of your investments, that makes YOU responsible for the decisions, not some advisor, not some tipster. Today's market was mostly down until late in the session. There are two reasons. Today was one of those "triple witching days" when lots of options expire. But perhaps more important, the S&P rebalanced their indices. Their indices are "market capitalization" weighted, meaning it matters how many shares are outstanding and available for trading, the so-called "float". That changes over time. The effect is index funds and ETF's (exchange traded funds) have to adjust their portfolios, causing extra trading in these stocks. It may also change the apparent value of some stocks. So while at the close prices recovered to close basically unchanged, volume rose to +25% above average. That will change my computation of average volume for a few weeks. Price Vola- Momen- Volume Oscil- Summ. Change tility tum lator Index -__+ -__+ -__+ -__+ -__+ -__+ __<_ _|__ __|_ _<__ _<__ ___< 03/14 _<__ _|__ _|__ _<__ |___ ___< 03/15 _<__ _|__ _|__ __<_ <___ __<_ 03/16 __<_ _>__ _|__ __<_ |___ __<_ 03/17 _<__ _>__ _|__ ___| <___ __<_ 03/18 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: SELL Date: 03/15/05 S&P: 1198 Winner or Loser: Loser By: -9 See my market tracking charts for '03-'04 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 .... IT IS documented, look under "For Internal Use Only." ___ MultiMail/MS-DOS v0.35 --- * Origin: The Bare Bones BBS (1:105/360) .