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Strategies & Market Trends : MDA - Market Direction Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (35706)	12/22/1999 9:42:00 AM
From: Les H	Respond to of 99985

Top Individual Investors at iExchange.com Expect Strong Stock Market Performance for 2000 08:04 a.m. Dec 22, 1999 Eastern PASADENA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 22, 1999--A blue-chip panel of individual investors who regularly contribute to iExchange.com believes there will be no stopping the powerful advance of the US economy in 2000 and that the stock market should continue to set records as a result. They predict, by an overwhelming margin, that the bull market will continue during the next year with gains of at least 10 percent on the popular broad market indexes, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Standard & Poor's 500 and NASDAQ. Despite this overall optimism, however, the group was much more guarded about the outlook for technology and Internet stocks. The investors are individuals who regularly contribute to iExchange.com (www.iexchange.com), a unique investment Web site that tracks, scores and ranks stock predictions in order to identify individual stock pickers with superior track records. iExchange.com allows participants, "Analysts," with good stock picking track records to sell their investment ideas and insights. Individual investors who use the Internet for research and stock trading have become one of the most potent forces driving the market in the last few years. From a select group of the top stock pickers at iExchange.com, out of thousands of Analysts on the site, 21 provided forecasts for the market in 2000. "Thanks to the power and reach of the Internet, combined with iExchange.com's unique ability to track and rank stock predictions, it is now possible to gather a vast amount of grass-roots intelligence," said David Eisner, president and CEO of iExchange.com. "iExchange.com provides a new voice of financial information from people of all walks of life." According to 70 percent of the top iExchange.com investors polled, the outlook for next year is for a continued bull market, with predicted gains of 10 to 20 percent or more on the Dow, S&P 500 and NASDAQ. Another 20 percent surveyed believed market performance would be average with gains in a range of 5 percent to 10 percent. Just one survey participant called for a bear market with declines in excess of 10 percent. One other participant predicted a possible market decline, forecasting that the averages would be mixed, within a range that could be up or down by as much as 5 percent. The group split just about evenly when asked whether technology stocks would continue to be one of the market's hottest sectors in 2000. While 52 percent agreed with the statement that fast-growing technology companies would have difficulty living up to the inflated expectations for growth and profits in the next year, 48 percent disagreed. In addition to being top performers, the Analysts polled had to have a minimum of ten stock picks on the iExchange.com web site in order to qualify for the survey. There were slightly more than 30 participants who met the criteria, with 21 responding. The survey was conducted between Dec. 15 and 17. The top Analysts in the survey had gains of more than 40 and 50 percent from their portfolio of picks. Because iExchange.com has been operating only since October (and a few months prior to that in beta testing), these returns were obtained in as little as two months, far in excess of the gains during that time period of the benchmark S&P 500. The median annualized rate of return for the group is in excess of 500 percent. "The goal of iExchange.com is to take the energy and wisdom of individual investors who use the Internet to research investment ideas and create a focus that helps identify and reward the most consistently successful Analysts," said Eisner. "While we recognize that the track records of our Analysts are still in the early stages and are not predictive of future performance, their stock picking records so far are very impressive." For the period from Oct. 11 to Dec. 17, there were more than 1,300 Analysts at iExchange.com whose picks outperformed the S&P 500 and Dow, which gained 6.43 percent and 5.72 percent respectively. More than 220 Analysts beat the NASDAQ's return of 28.71 percent during that period. On balance, the investors in the survey felt that the high valuations of many Internet stocks posed a threat to the market, but that the backdrop of a solid economic environment and the rapid pace of innovation and growth in technology industries would offset this. More than 30 percent of the survey respondents said there was a significant risk of a bubble in at least some market sectors that would burst even if the economy remained strong. But more than 40 percent of the investors said the growth and momentum in the technology sector were so great that the economy and the market next year would perform as well or better than they did this year. Another 20 percent said that the overall health of the U.S. economy made a protracted market and economy decline unlikely. Only one respondent said that higher inflation and interest rates next year were likely to trigger an overdue bear market. iExchange.com Analyst Comments "Many stocks are overvalued, and the bubble will burst for many of them, particularly in the Internet sector. Many stocks are expensive, but the fundamentals are strong for them and they should continue to perform well (including in the Internet sector). Technology will probably produce both some of the best and worst performers in the market," said an Analyst known as "Futurosity" from Petaluma, Calif. "Internet related stocks will experience a setback as investors begin to realize that valuation levels today are so extreme that even the most inconceivable sales and profit growth estimates will not justify them," said "Bret Gordon" of Brookline, Mass. "Leaders with a talented management team in a tech sector can leverage their high valuations to make strategic acquisitions," wrote an Analyst known as "Grishmoney" from Brooklyn, NY.