Portfolio down 4.81%, Nasdaq down a record 349 points or 7.64% at 4223, Dow up 2.75%, and S&P up 0.49%, Gilder down 10.4%, and Meisler down 7.1%.
Today was the worst Nasdaq loss and the fifth largest ever percentage wise.
The top seven days were:
10/19/87 -11.35
10/20/87 -9.00
10/26/87 -9.00
08/31/98 -8.56
today -7.64
10/27/97 -7.02
03/27/80 -6.15
Been alot of money on the side waiting for tech to decline. I expect some comeback due to Oracle analyst meeting tomorrow and Yahoo earnings on Wednesday. What I saw in the first March correction was people borrowing more on margin to get their capital back. The last five trading day, they probably got wiped out. Very similar to last April correction with Yahoo, Dell, and others. I've been able to convince all of my friends to hold tight in their tech mutual funds despite being down thousands in the last week.
One stat:
Nasdaq up only 3.7% YTD
Dow down 1.8% YTD
S&P500 up 3.0%
Portfolio around up 14%+
This is the closest the three indexes have been together since the beginning of the year.
The loser in all this is the investor who went chasing the hot sector only to watch it dump. The hot sector now is the Dow stocks. Two weeks from now, I'm betting it will be the semiconductors when they announce earnings.
I don't like losing 4.8% of my portfolio today, but I have been here before and survived it. In 1987, we all cut our losses and sold at a 60% loss and watched the market rally back in 30% the next year. It seemed impossible that stocks that lost 60% could ever regain their previous high, but most profitable companies did it and better before the decade ended.
If I were to bet on a short term bounce tomorrow, look to ORCL, CSCO, and EMC with their new alliance and the ORCL meeting.
Only green were SUN, EK, and MDT. All NYSE stocks.
From briefing.com
... The catalyst for the selloff was an announcement that settlement talks between Microsoft (MSFT -15 3/8) and the Department of Justice had collapsed over the weekend... While this news set the tone for a negative open, there seemed to be no escaping it all day as it was then reported Judge Jackson would issue his conclusions of law at 17:00 ET... Accordingly, there was no rush to buy the dip in Microsoft... Unfortunately for tech investors, there wasn't much rush to buy the dip in anything else either... As always, there were a few pockets of strength, but Microsoft's woes, combined with an earnings warning from Parametric Technology (PMTC -10 5/16) and Legato Systems' (LGTO -24 3/4) admission that it would be restating financial results for 1999, weighed heavily on tech sentiment... By and large, the selling activity was indiscriminate and it fed on itself as the Nasdaq took out several support levels before bottoming at 4193.10 in the closing stages of trading... The tech-heavy index did get a modest bounce just before the closing bell, but that was a small consolation in an otherwise distressful day...
Strange as it seems, I was more worried when GSTRF was tanking when I held it March. See everyone Wednesday. A day in Rosemont the next few days is planned. Will watch CNBC but have no access to a computer.
Jack |
