Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : All Clowns Must Be Destroyed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: coug who wrote (16440)	3/11/2000 9:16:00 PM
From: wlheatmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42523

coug, nice post..thoughtful...strange things going on these days,,eh? doesn't make sense anymore to me. we're either in transition to a truly new era...or many people are going to be hurt....maybe as you suggested,,,we're going to end up somewhere in the middle. life tends to do that...you might not always get what you want...but you'll get what you need...sounds like a good song lyric..-g- glad to see your thoughts. mike

To: coug who wrote (16440)	3/12/2000 7:40:00 AM
From: re3	Respond to of 42523

from the toronto star today... Teachers' fund offers lesson on oil stocks I was pleased to read the March 1 announcement that the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board has agreed to purchase 20.2 million shares of Canadian Occidental Petroleum Ltd. from Occidental Petroleum Corp. of Los Angeles. I think they're a very bright group of people who help to prove my point that oil stocks are getting ready to outmuscle tech-stock mania. The deal makes sense because it comes late in the business cycle, when world demand for commodities tends to rise, boosting oil and metal stocks. So far, however, hard assets and cash flow are not in favour with most investors, so the vote of confidence from the teachers' group is interesting. Most energy stocks posted good returns in 1999, but this year have failed to rally in spite of higher oil prices. Investors apparently feel high oil and gas prices won't stick. But some of the filters I run on stocks suggest that may be changing. I run stock filters on a huge Canadian and U.S. database I buy for a small fee. (What you get free is worth what you pay for it.) I comb the database for stocks with volume and price behaving in certain ways at the same time, suggesting good candidates for investment. My filters have produced a good-news, bad-news story. The good news is that after 15 years of study and back-testing, I have concluded that stock filtering is one of the most powerful tools anyone can use to structure a portfolio effectively. The bad news is that filtering formulas can take years to develop and maintaining the data is tedious and unending. Interpreting results requires patience and experience. Evidence from back-testing suggests that the best way to use the filter results is to watch for a dominant theme. About a year ago, I offered filter results on about 1,900 Canadian listed stocks from my Web site. Penny stocks persistently appeared. I suspected a boom in micro-cap stocks was just around the corner, and here on March 7 last year I suggested that the Vancouver Stock Exchange (now CNDX) was about to take off. I was right, but I was wrong. The CNDX did take off, led by micro-cap technology stocks. I had carelessly assumed that the bulk of the CNDX micro-caps were resource stocks. The Canadian filter dated July 2 last year generated about 40 stock selections. The Toronto Stock Exchange 300 composite stood at about 7,140 then and markets were showing no signs of tech-mania. The TSE 300 would actually decline over the next 16 weeks before finally moving upward in October. The list did contain important information and I just had to dig for it. I removed 10 stocks because they were thinly traded and could be manipulated. I then divided the 30 remaining stocks into asset classes such as technology, industrial, financial and resources. Almost half of the 30 stocks were technology-related. As of Feb. 29, the TSE 300 had gained about 31 per cent, compared with 271 per cent for the 12 selected technology-related issues. The 18 remaining stocks showed a 3 per cent loss. A filter run on the week ended March 3 selected 38 stocks, including 21 energy stocks, including our old friend Canadian Oxy. Energy is the dominant theme in this run of the filter. Our chart this week is the weekly close of Canadian Oxy, plotted on a logarithmic scale to show percentage changes. Note a bear cycle beginning in mid-1997. The stock spent the last 12 months climbing back almost to the pre-crash high. Consider that Nortel Networks Corp. tripled after breaking above its old 1998 pre-crash high of about $50. Will the same happen to Canadian Oxy if it breaks above the old pre-crash high, say moving to $40 or beyond? I run the Canadian stock filters twice a month and offer the results free for downloading at www.gettingtechnical.com, my Web site. Remember, look for a dominant theme.