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To: Jorj X Mckie who wrote (14204)11/25/2002 1:25:06 AM
From: Techplayer  Respond to of 57110
 
Geezers playing with care

By Peter Brimelow, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 1:11 AM ET Nov. 25, 2002


ANNANDALE, Va. (CBS.MW) -- After seven straight weeks of stock market gains, can we relax? On balance, veterans of the 1974 bottom are still handling the rally with care.

HULBERT FINANCIAL DIGEST
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There are many ways of sifting though the Hulbert Financial Digest's huge collection of investment adviser performance data, looking for that nugget of advice that works. (See Mark Hulbert's Nov. 22 column for an academic approach -- reaching a surprisingly bearish conclusion.)

I've been experimenting with the idea that this is a "geezers' market" -- one in which experience actually counts, unlike the "kids' markets," like the late 1990s blow-off, where it hurt.

A significant share of letter editors who were around at the last bear market bottom in 1974 were bearish this past spring and into the summer as the market declined. But they quickly recognized the subsequent rally's strength, although believing the primary trend was still bearish. (See my Oct. 14 column.)

Go geezers!

Some these editors are so geezerish that they don't even have Web sites. But this is what the ones that we were able to check by press time are thinking now:

Cabot Market Letter (Carlton Lutts): 70 percent invested

Chartist (Dan Sullivan): 0 percent invested, though impressed with strength of rally

Dines Letter (James Dines): Neutral

Dow Theory Forecasts: Bearish on interpretation of Dow Theory, 75 percent invested. (This is the sort of paradox you often get with investment letters, which is why Hulbert ruthlessly ignores everything except their actual recommendations.)

Dow Theory Letters (Richard Russell): Officially bearish, though continues to play this rally with Diamonds (DIA: news, chart, profile)

Granville Market Letter (Joe Granville): Bullish

Growth Stock Outlook (Charles Allmon): Bearish, 27 percent invested

Harry Schultz Letter: Leaning toward the bearish camp

Investment Quality Trends (Geraldine Weiss): Bearish, though no specific exposure recommended. Thinks Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU: news, chart, profile) would be undervalued at 6,250.

Investors Intelligence (Michael Burke): 100 percent invested, though thinks we're approaching top of rally and lower low will be seen in 2003

S&P's Outlook: 60 percent invested; bullish

Value Line Investment Survey: 75 percent to 85 percent invested

Depending on how you count, this means there are 7 bearish, 5 bullish, and 1 neutral -- at best, mixed.

But there's this complication: three of the bulls, Outlook, Value Line and Dow Theory Forecasts, are corporate operations. It's not clear how much institutional memory you're getting. All had some difficulty handling the depth of the decline this summer.

Cabot Market Letter's Carlton Lutts is both a person and a bull. His recent reasons varied from the market's technical action to signs that an economic recovery is beginning and that the Iraq crisis may be resolved without war.

Two individual editors who are both persons and bears continue to argue very precisely that this is a bear market rally, worth playing but doomed ultimately to fall -- when it's got its fangs into enough investors.

They are Michael Burke of Investor's Intelligence and Richard Russell of Dow Theory Letters. Both have had excellent years.

Burke wrote on Friday:

"We remain bullish short time and expect indices to exceed summer highs, but some of our indicators are now starting to reach overbought levels and care must be taken to overstay this rally...Our DJIA target of 9,150-9,600 is getting close..."

Russell, while successfully riding this stock market rally, is getting really grumpy. He wrote on Saturday:

"For the Fed, the stock market HAS become the 'economy,' and monetary policy has devolved into good old-fashioned market manipulation not as some exception but as a matter of course..."

And he draws a conclusion very reminiscent of the 1970s:

"I liken a primary trend that is held back to a coiled spring...when the spring breaks loose, the results are both powerful and startling. Which is what I expect for gold somewhere ahead -- maybe a few months ahead, may be a year ahead."

For more information or to subscribe to the Hulbert Financial Digest, click here.



To: Jorj X Mckie who wrote (14204)11/25/2002 2:43:07 AM
From: X Y Zebra  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 57110
 
That's a powerful chart you have there... As for what Don Worden is trying to say... I am not sure, I think he is suggesting a return to "normality" meaning that the market may be under the bear, yet the current rally is quite powerful, and it may be giving signs of a turn around... I think he means that his indicators are beginning to react more as he is accustomed to, instead of being under a bubble or a relentless bear.

But that is a mere impression. I have never been good at "predicting" what the beast will do and imo either "arguing" with the market or guessing what it will do next is a total waste of energy.

So I just attempt to follow its actions... with the proviso... if wrong, take losses quickly and force me to keep the winners.

To illustrate... in the recent sell off in ACS, I jumped in and got a handful of shares at $38.75... then I did the stupid thing and sold for a 2 point profit... had I kept it I would have already be better than 10.00 pts ahead... dumb

However on the "quick loss" thing I am getting better and after a foolish attempt to short QLGC... I got out quickly... in the long run it seems to work. My main problem is sticking to rules... But don't trust my judgement, at times I feel like an cork from an old wine bottle bopping up and down in the waves of a furious sea; oh and I repeat to myself a bunch of T/A rules pretending to believe that they all work... I think Fibos do fairly well... (for no other reason that there are a few other maniacs looking at exactly the same charts...

So it is like a hypochondriac, who feels sick because he thinks he is... you know, the self imposed penance, just because everyone does the same thing... -lol