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Strategies & Market Trends : Three Amigos Stock Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JoeinIowa who wrote (24279)	3/22/2001 4:54:20 PM
From: JoeinIowa	Respond to of 29382

Sometimes You Get the Bear, Sometimes the Bear Gets You By Yi Ping Ho Staff Reporter 3/22/01 4:36 PM ET A paper in Charleston, W.Va., reported: Kanawha City resident Don Gartman has been watching a bear tear up his backyard while a bear market eats into his investments. Last week, Gartman said he thought there was a cosmic connection between the two events. "At about 1:30 a.m., my wife woke me up and there was a black bear in the backyard, knocking down our birdfeeders," he said. "I thought, 'Don you're in a bear market. The bear's got you.'" Gartman may have hit on something: this bear market may have us all. Take today's action for example. Biotechs took a huge whammy while the chipmakers -- one of the most beleaguered sectors in tech land -- were on the upside. Sure, earnings concerns were recently stoked by biotech firms like Applied Biosystems (ABI:NYSE - news), which recently warned of slowing sales. But if that's the case, the semis aren't in the clear. Indeed, the chip sector has had its fair share of high-profile, fear-invoking, earnings warnings, with the last being Dallas Semiconductor (DS:NYSE - news). Nevertheless, the ongoing bad news didn't put a dent in the recent performance of the SOX, namely the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index, which was one of the few indices in the green today, ending 12.3% higher to 626. "There is no change in the fundamental outlook of the sector. From a big-cap point of view, people are rotating out of drug stocks into more cyclicals, such as tech," according to biotech analyst Richard Evans from Sanford Bernstein. Evans said some optimistic bargain hunters, who anticipate a rapid fourth-quarter recovery for the economy and the market, have been stoking the buy-up for chips. Is tech, led by the chips, approaching that ephemeral zone of capitulation then? Some maintain that "The Bottom" is always and already elusive, given that investors are acting on irrational triggers. "We're seeing a restless rotation of money and not a strong conviction in any sector for a long period of time," stock market strategist at Fahnestock Alan Ackerman said. "There is neither leadership nor conviction in the process. Anxiety levels are high as credit worries, corporate earnings worries and negatives about a short-term turn in the U.S. economy have surfaced." Ackerman said he sees signs that investors are overreacting on the downside, and ignoring what could be good reasons for buying certain stocks. He illustrated his point with a small biotech firm, Enzo Biochem (ENZ:NYSE - news), whose shares reached a new 52-week low of $13.67, down from a 52-week high of $84.00, despite recently reporting earnings growth and new "powerhouse patents in the genetic area." "But you can't give this stock away right now," Ackerman added. He believes that the market needs more leadership from the Fed, which should lower interest rates to ease liquidity. In the meantime, the market looks set for more volatility as today's safe-havens may be tomorrow's dirt. "The market is definitely not rational," Scott Bleier, chief investment strategist from Prime Charter opined. "Somewhere between last year's euphoria and today's depression lies the real truth."