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

To: Les H who wrote (40599)	2/18/2000 9:55:00 AM
From: coug	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99985

Thanks for the link. In somebody's lifetime, the weight of all this will will finally start to sink ....in.. BTW, didn't old Al say something to the effect, "he couldn't manage something, like money or money supply, he couldn't define"". I didn't really catch it very well.. But If that is true.. WHOAAAAAA.... Like who's in charge of this Cuckoo's Nest..the Warden can't recognize insanity..... coug

To: Les H who wrote (40599)	2/18/2000 10:15:00 AM
From: flatsville	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99985

Les-- Where did you see/hear/find this? Can you give more detail? >>>FTC is now looking into the health web sites sharing info on visitors/members with 3rd parties. Drug companies? Insurance companies?<<< TIA

To: Les H who wrote (40599)	2/18/2000 11:12:00 AM
From: j g cordes	Respond to of 99985

Margin debt expands as stocks sink. I believe that's the right relationship.. unless someone sells their stock or puts new money into their account. Therefore a squeeze is taking place forcing some to have their margin reviewed or worse getting margin calls. It would be most advantageous to know what stocks or sectors are most heavily margined and most vulnerable to downside marginable price acceleration. Jim

To: Les H who wrote (40599)	2/18/2000 2:44:00 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99985

Bay Street Beat: Tech frenzy part of a sea change? February 13, 2000 By Sarah Edmonds TORONTO (Reuters) - One of the fiercest arguments in the investment community today is whether the rage for technology shares and the surge in tech-heavy exchanges, like Toronto and the Nasdaq, are caused by investors recognizing a sea change or buying into a bubble. The technology fad has wandered off Toronto's Bay Street and New York's Wall Street into shops, taxi stands, cafes and restaurants. The bicycle courier sweating in the elevator has bet his damp shirt on Corel Corp. The owner of the local pub whispers that he is starting up an investment club. The topic has even ventured onto the comics pages. The syndicated "Sally Forth" comic strip last week ran an ongoing plot about a family buying a technology stock and giving up all other pursuits to glue themselves to its progress on the Internet. It is clear that everything related to hardware and software has grown from interest to obsession in North America. And when financial sector fixations grip the general public, it is often a sign that the good times may be near an end. "The hot tips, the taxi tips, they have been flowing around for more than a year," said Martin Roberge, Montreal-based quantitative strategist at National Bank Securities. Tech-heavy Nasdaq and Toronto have managed to advance even in the face of a more than 11 percent fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Although both fell Friday, Toronto's key stock index and Nasdaq hit records Thursday. Roberge, who is in the "this is the end" (or at least the "this will be a long hiatus") camp, believes that the flow of money into aggressive growth funds may only delay the inevitable for those markets. He said equities as a whole are likely to peak this quarter and then leave investor stomachs behind with a stunning 20 percent correction. The trigger for this? Technology stock earnings' worries stirred up in March by the traditional end-of-quarter "confession period" -- when companies admit to shortfalls in the quarter -- against a backdrop of continued interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve. This 20 percent downdraft, which Roberge thinks could begin as early as this week if Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan unsettles investors about rates in his semiannual Humphrey-Hawkins testimony, will be followed by consolidation at the bottom. "By the time that you get companies confessing, you know that the Fed will be also hiking rates," Roberge said. "I don't know if the market has recognized that the fundamentals have really deteriorated in the technology sector." Those who believe that the revolution in the equity market is here to stay are equally passionate. While rotation is inevitable as today's leading-edge companies start to exhibit slower, more mature-company growth patterns, investors have to recognize that North America is a growth economy and only tech shares will offer the kind of long-term growth they hunger for, said Duncan Stewart, fund manager at Tera Capital in Toronto. In fact, this rotation from one area to the next can keep the broad technology sector moving indefinitely. "It can go on forever, essentially. That's the lovely thing about technology. At one point, you know, fire was an innovative technology. I believe there was once another company called wheels.com," he added. However, even Stewart, whose primary focus is tech and biotech, admits to being a little edgy about current valuations. But he still sees tech dominance as a fundamental shift -- arguing that while some of the individual shares may have got ahead of themselves, the sector as a whole still offers far more growth than traditional equities. "I believe there's still a great deal of strength out there in the technology market. There will be winners and losers, week to week and day to day. But I don't see the whole sector collapsing," he said. A little consolidation in the tech market, which Stewart sees as both necessary and healthy, is possible in the near term but is likely to be constrained to 5 or 10 percent. It may also be mitigated by investors rotating sectors within the broader technology arena: from wireless to semiconductors to software to networking and back again. Subodh Kumar, chief strategist for CIBC World Markets in Toronto, does not see major trouble in the future of technology stocks. But neither does he see dramatic gains. "Myself, I still believe that the expansion in the valuation of the technology stocks has gone up about as much as it can," Kumar said. "The stocks might go back and forth but I think that the valuation expansion phase is over." Sector rotation in the broader market -- the movement of money from a sector seen as overvalued to a less-lofty group -- should mitigate losses and create a range-bound Canadian market for the next while, Kumar added.