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To: Didi who wrote (1993)	7/19/2002 5:46:36 PM
From: TigerPaw	Respond to of 2505

It appears that a war with Iraq could begin in a couple months. That may affect new investments. sg.news.yahoo.com haaretzdaily.com.

To: Didi who wrote (1993)	7/26/2002 11:09:07 AM
From: Didi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2505

just in..."McMillan Market Commentary", 7/25/02... optionstrategist.com ================================= >>>McMillan Market Commentary Thursday, July 25, 2002 optionstrategist.com <---accompanying charts Stock Market Oversold is sometimes a nebulous term -- but not in this environment. Nearly every indicator we (or anyone else) follows, reached historic levels as the market slammed down over the past two weeks. Market breadth is a good case in point. It has almost reached the negative readings of October, 1998, and September, 2001. On both of those occasions, the market rallied strongly, but it was not the beginning of a new bull market. In 1998, the market collapsed again in October, and of course this year, the market shattered the September lows. So, while these low breadth readings are indicative that a decent, tradeable rally is at hand, they do not necessarily indicate the end of the bear market. The equity-only put-call ratios have clearly been the most bullish indicator recently. Both the 'standard' and the 'weighted' gave premature buy signals a couple of weeks ago, and have held onto those buy signals ever since. The breakdown of the 'standard' ratio into its NYSE and NASD components (chart, above right) shows similar buy signals. With put-call ratio signals, one must also require technical confirmation from the underlying -- something that has not been forthcoming as far as the broad market is concerned -- and so we have not been induced into buying the market, despite these buy signals. These put-call ratio buy signals have been recently re-confirmed. Volatility is another major indicator that we follow. No matter how you slice it using $VIX or some other measure -- volatility rose to extremely high levels and has backed down some. That's a short- term buy signal. The trend of volatility is still higher, though, and that indicates that the intermediate-term trend has not confirmed the short- term bullishness. Finally, there is price action. Prices broke down and literally went parabolic on the downside. That action forced market breadth and option implied volatility to reach oversold extremes as well. Why put volume didn't reach similar historic proportions is a vexing question, but one that is not really important. Prices rebounded strongly in a huge rally on Wednesday, July 24th. However, the market was so oversold that even after that rally, many stocks and indices remained in oversold conditions (below the lower Bollinger Band, for example). Prices need to regain some of the levels that they lost levels that are now resistance -- before even a modicum of intermediate-term bullishness can be assigned to this price action. As a first step, $OEX needs to climb above 426.50. Then it needs to close above 450. If those two levels are attained, then a longer-term advance is possible. Otherwise, it simply is not. The bottom line is that we still don't have many intermediate-term buy signals (only the equity-only put-call ratios, so far). So, don't get too excited about the upside until we do If Wednesday's big rally turns out to be another 'one-day wonder,' it will be the cruelest trick the market has played on the bulls to date.<<<