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Strategies & Market Trends : MARKET INDEX TECHNICAL ANALYSIS - MITA -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Killswitch who wrote (14504)	8/31/2002 3:50:02 PM
From: Killswitch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19219

Links to graphs at the bottom -- "Help wanted index decline is bearish for the stock market" We find this leading economic index to be one of the best single coincident indicators of Kitchin, or four-year, stock market cycles, and our work shows that it is leading the stock market to new lows. Of course a group of leading economic indicators, such as our TMW modification of ECRI's WLI, is a more robust coincident indicator of the stock market because of error offsetting diversity, but the monthly Help Wanted (newspaper) Advertising Index is not one of those six more frequently reported weekly indicators. But sometimes it can be even more than just an interesting confirmation of the group index. This is one of those times, but first some history and a comparison. See the two attached .gif file charts and notice, for example, that the Nov 1997 peak at 93 was right after our call for the start of a BAAC Supercycle bear market period start call, which was the beginning of the period of money market funds sustainably outperforming the equally-weighted index of all exchange-traded US common stocks. Then it double topped at 93 in Feb 1999, just before the ideal money market asset reallocation point for the capitalization-weighted index of all exchange- traded US common stocks. And the month before the all- time high on Mar 24, 2000, the latter index made a lower high at 900, creating a foreboding negative divergence. Although someone said the index decline, so far, from 93 -> 44, has been the largest percentage decline, 52.7%, since the index was started in 1951, the chart, and its source data, shows that's not accurate since it dropped 53.8% from 106 in Oct 1979 to 49 in Oct 1982. But it will match that record if it declines to 43, and it will become a new record decline if it gets down to 42, as we fully expect. But its message right now is most relevant since our work shows that it is: (a) still leading the stock market, not lagging as it typically does at such lows, and as it will do eventually again, and (b) it is already back to its May low of 44 and (c) its increasingly negative nationwide breadth portends that those lows will be soon broken, with similar implications for the stock market. Bob Bronson Bronson Capital Markets Research Help-Wanted Index Dips Three Points 29 August 2002 The Conference Board's Help-Wanted Advertising Index - a key barometer of America's job market - declined three points in July. The Index now stands at 44, down from 47 in June. It was 57 one year ago. In the last three months, help-wanted advertising declined in seven of the nine regions of the U.S., and increased in two areas. Steepest declines occurred in the West South Central (-13.6%), Middle Atlantic (-11.6%), and South Atlantic (-5.7%) regions. Increases occurred in the New England (1.8%) and Pacific (1.0%) regions. Says Conference Board Economist Ken Goldstein: "Job advertising stopped falling late in 2001. But since November, ad volume has remained essentially unchanged as layoffs moderated. The U.S. labor market is treading water, with the economy clearly growing too slowly to open up many new jobs (only a mere 6000 new jobs in July). With an economic recovery not yet strong enough to produce new jobs, businesses simply aren't increasing their recruitment efforts." The Conference Board surveys help-wanted advertising volume in 51 major newspapers across the country every month. Because ad volume has proven to be sensitive to labor market conditions, this measure provides a gauge of change in the local, regional and national supply of jobs. -- personalpages.bellsouth.net personalpages.bellsouth.net