COMMENT on "PIG": The professors have bought a gold stock, Barrick Resources, without any prompting from me! (I have not been able to make the last few meetings.) What do they know that I don't know?
The Contrarian's View is published 11 times per year on a mostly-irregular schedule, and the views expressed are those of the author and editor, Nick Chase. Because nobody can predict the future, results of past suggestions or recommendations are no guarantee of future results. Material in this publication may be freely quoted provided proper attribution is given to its source. Subscription rate: Free on the Internet through the World-Wide Web service at Assumption College. Using your favorite Web-browsing program, Open URL http://nick.assumption.edu. Mailed paper subscriptions, one year for $39 to The Contrarian's View, 132 Moreland Street, Worcester, Massachusetts 01609. There is a limit of 50 paid subscribers at one time; please check for availability before sending any money. Sorry, Visa and Mastercard are not available. Overseas subscription rate, U.S. $54. Unsolicited material sent to us by UPS or by courier other than the postal service is refused and returned to sender! Phone: (508) 757-2881
I am sure that my book collection is not atypical in this regard. People who cared to write about how they survived the Depression likely were not published, because their experiences were so commonplace. Those books that were published are long out of print and likely have been discarded by all but the largest libraries as hopelessly "out of date".
In other words, the first-hand knowledge of the terrible hardships of the Great Depression is rapidly becoming lost. The great majority of Americans now alive were born after the second world war, and cannot conceive of the harshness of the 1930s; they are likely to dismiss the stories of hardships as irrelevant to their lives. (I barely remember wartime rationing myself.)
So I appealed to my Internet readers for help, asking them if they lived through the Depression or had relatives who did, and had an interesting story to share with others, to send it along. "Bonus points" were offered to anybody who lived in a "Hooverville", or who had a relative jump out a window to his death in the 1929 Crash.
Here are some of the stories I got:
From Pamela A. Bauer:
With regard to conditions in the 1930s, which affected my grandparents' generation - my grandparents that lived about 20-30 miles out[side] of St. Louis and survived predominantly on farm income; they hardly realized that we were in a depression, from what I understand. (I personally find that to be a big clue as to where one might find refuge in the coming decades).
From Ted E. Gray:
My mother told me of walking to school and picking up coal along the road which had fallen off of coal trucks. She was from a family of thirteen, and this practice allowed the family to augment their fuel supplies. The coal was used for both heating and cooking in those days.
She also told me about eating lard sandwitches. The lard was spread between two slices of bread like peanut butter. Sometimes there would also be onions or tomato slices to place betweeen the bread. Obtaining food was a constant battle; hunting, fishing and gardening were common as a means to feed the family.
To this day, my mother keeps a mason jar next to the stove filled with bacon fat; she uses it to cook with and for flavoring. She still eats onion sandwitches, and has a habit of drinking the juice from cooked vegetables, green beans and corn mostly. Her stories are filled with anecdotes of neighbors helping neighbors; also, of fathers going off to find work and never returning. Abandoned kids were just "taken in" and adopted by whoever could afford them.
The experience colored her life more than any other. Growing up, we were taught that wasting food was a sin, not eating what was put before you was foolish, and that money was for saving, not spending.
From Henry Mullaney:
I was born in 1943, so I have no direct knowlege, but I did get stories from my family.
My father, Henry Mullaney, Sr., (Harvard, class of 1920 business school) was the New England Regional Manager for Texaco. His main job in the 20s was expanding Texaco's net of gas stations. He developed the concept of siting stations where the traffic was, where before they were placed in the center of towns. He also developed the concept of measuring traffic, and invented the traffic counter, consisting of a rubber hose across the highway connected to a counter, still used today. He also used just a few sets of plans for the stations, and crews that moved from place to place constantly building stations. Franchises like McDonalds use these concepts today.
By 1929, he was very well paid, and he bought a new car every year. Our family album has several pictures of these. They were large roadster convertibles. He was engaged to marry my mother, who was a teacher.
When the depression came, there was no more need for new stations since no one was buying new cars, and few could afford to drive far. First the crews were laid off. Within 18 months, Texaco centralized administration, and my father was out of a job. He was unemployed for six years, finally getting a job, ironically, as the second employee of the new "Department of Employment Security" in Massachusetts. He had sold his house at a huge loss, and moved back with his parents. He never again would consider buying a house.
My mother, fortunately, still had a job. But when my grandfather died (around 1929 - but not by defenestration), she became the main support of her mother, and 5 younger siblings. The main focus was on having enough money to be able to buy food. Her family was fortunate - they owned their house - so they had shelter. But clothes were a luxury. Socks were darned. Clothes were mended. There were patches on patches. Clothes were handed down to younger children. Any new clothes were sewn. Cardboard was put into shoes when holes wore in the soles. My grandmother was a master at "stone soup" - making a meal out of almost nothing. Bread was baked at home. Only the kitchen was heated, and that was the living space in the winter. My uncles would watch for anyone getting a delivery of coal, and would scavenge any coal that spilled in the street. When it got really cold, they would start up the coal furnace.
Things were tough until WWII started. Then one uncle joined the Army. The second had had polio and was not eligible - but he got a job at Gillette. An aunt got a job at Sears, where she worked for 40 years. My parents got married in 1939. Starting in 1947, my father again got a new car every year - but a family sedan - no more flashy roadsters.
My family learned lessons that they drilled into me as a kid: waste not, want not, make it do or do without, etc. We lived that way, right through the 60s.
I am astonished today at my kids and stepkids. They wander around the house turning on lights and turning up thermostats. They never think of the cost. They have to have designer clothes, of which they have so many that you cannot see the floors in their rooms. A new wardrobe is expected every season. They "expect" a car when they turn 16. They think nothing of eating out. When I attempt to pass on the lessons from my parents, there is a real look of puzzlement on their faces. After all, no one today worries about money - do they?
So, I guess it's time for a whole new set of lessons to be learned. Last April, I was lunching with younger co-workers. One boasted of making 22% in his mutual fund. A second said, "That's nothing, mine made 26%". The first wanted to know the name so he could switch. I piped up with "What are the relative risks?" They said "risks? Risks of what?" I said "Risk of the market going down." They said "down? The market doesn't go down, it only goes up." I then decided that the end was near.
From a global perspective, perhaps this is all for the good. I read recently that the US consumes over 25% of the earth's resources. It's time for all this excess to end and come into a better balance. Personally, I feel way ahead because of the lessons drilled into me as a child.
From Benjamin F. Purdham:
I was born in 1923. From 1929 until 1933 we lived in Tacoma Park, Maryland, a short distance from the district [Washington, D.C.]. My father was a professor of music at a college there.
One of his outside students was a beautiful woman in her fifties who always arrived at our home for her lesson beautifully groomed, arriving in her black Cadillac limo with her black chauffeur. She lived in a lovely downtown Washington apartment building.
Her husband, a stockbroker, had jumped to his death. Even a nine-year-old thought it strange that he would take his life amid such luxury.
My family never suffered much during that time, for my father had a regular job as a teacher. However my wife grew up on a farm in western Georgia. They had kerosene lamps, had a spring wagon and mule, and had to get their clothes from the Salvation Army. The government had a factory where the people could come and make their own mattresses. Up to that time they had lumpy homemade cotton-filled mattresses.
I [recently] went to my wife's high school's fifty-year reunion. From that group of improvished Georgia students came teachers, physicians, wealthy businessmen.
As you are probably aware, the Federal Government unequalized the freight rates after the War of Northern Aggression [the Civil War]. That kept the South down until about 1948. I remember, while in dental school in Atlanta, the then-Governor Ellis Arnold got the freight rates equalized, so the South could industrialize. That was what the war was about - not slavery.
From Shane Maharg:
The only individual that I was fortunate enough to talk to that lived through the depression was my grandfather. He was in his late twenties at the time. I wish he were still around; I would pick his brain daily.
Anyway, one of the few things he ever mentioned to me that I remember was the time when Roosevelt ordered banks to be closed, and he prohibited them from paying out gold for money. Roosevelt then, by law, forced everyone that owned gold to sell it to the nearest reserve bank. I think that the banks paid about 20 dollars an ounce, the price of gold at the time.
The penalty was pretty stiff for individuals who didn't sell their gold immediately - so much for the 5th amendment. His next step was to raise the price of gold (I don't understand how he did this??) to $35 an ounce. In doing this, he wiped out about half of the government debt.
From Nick Chase:
Now, I get to tell my own stories. My parents didn't talk about the Depression much, but you can be sure that I was taught the value of thrift. I always though it was traditional Yankee cheapness, but in hindsight I think it was Depression scars, as we certainly were not poor while the three children were growing up.
I can remember, as a teenager, having an argument with my father about turning out lights. He wanted me to turn off a lamp if I walked out of the room for even a few minutes, and I got a long lecture about how expensive electricity was when he was young, and how his family continued to use kerosene lamps to conserve electricity. I tried to convince him that the cost of electricity was low enough that it was cheaper to leave the light on, because turning it on and off would wear out the light bulb, and it would have to be replaced sooner. This was true when I said it, but I didn't make much headway. Every night, when my father went to bed, he would put a sign on the stairs: "LIGHTS - 65š" - to make sure the last person to bed turned out the lights and turned down the heat. Today, I leave lights on all over the house - some rebellion never stops, I guess - and we have a big electric bill.
The words "Franklin D. Roosevelt" were anathema to my father, even while many Americans continued to virtually worship him as a demigod when I was a boy. I always wondered why. Only a few years ago, long after my mother had died, he told the story. He had entered college in 1927.... boom years.... and graduated in 1931, well after the 1929 crash and with the country rapidly sliding into the Great Depression. He went on to business school to get his MBA and graduated in 1933, with the intent of becoming an investment banker. Only problem.... the financiers of Wall Street who, many believed, had brought the country to ruin, were being treated as scoundrels. Even bankers, many of whom became suddenly unemployed in the "bank holiday" and resultant bank failures of March 1933, were not very popular. Certainly there were no job openings in my father's chosen field.
As my father put it, "the country was crying out for fresh capital", but the government had just laid a heavy dose of new regulation on the financial markets.... things we take for granted today, like prospectuses and full disclosure.... but which were brand new at the time, and nobody quite knew how to deal with them. As a result, the availability of what we today call "venture capital" disappeared. Finally, as my father related, somebody floated a prospectus, the SEC "blessed" it, and the bottleneck was relieved.
But too late for my father. Days, he worked for my grandfather in the legal department of United Shoe Machinery Corporation, while nights he studied at Portia Law School (now New England School of Law). When my grandfather retired, my father got his father's job as corporate secretary. (Can you imagine such a thing happening today? Well, nepotism is preferable, I guess, when the alternative is starving.)
Clearly my father blamed Franklin Roosevelt for prolonging the depression and depriving him of his chosen career. Historians will probably be arguing this point for the next few centuries, but there was no doubt in my father's mind that the Federal government made the Depression worse. When we three kids were growing up, we felt absolutely no pressure from either parent to choose one career over another; we were completely free to go in whatever career directions our talents and inclinations led us. My father wanted his kids to have the freedom of career choice that circumstances had denied him.
From time to time my father would make the comment that, much as he disliked Roosevelt's socialist policies, he thought that FDR might have saved the country from communism (which was the up-and-coming form of government at the time, in parallel with fascism). Times must have really, really been tough if there was a possibility our republican form of government would collapse.
My mother died of cancer when I was only 29 years old, too young for me to show much interest in the Depression or hardship stories about it. I do know, though, that her family rapidly descended from relative wealth to poverty when her father's department store went bust in the bad times. She had to borrow money (from my father's family, I think) to pay for the rest of her college education. My maternal grandfather died before I was born (of a broken spirit?); but I can recall visiting my grandmother's house, a modest abode furnished with nice things left over from the good days. The nicest thing about the house was its oceanfront location (on Buzzards Bay); I'm sure the place is worth a zillion dollars today because of its location.
The only other thing I can recall my mother saying about the period is that, as a youngster, she used to shoot pool on a table in the attic of eccentric millionairess and stock-market speculator extroadinaire Hetty Green, widow of Col. E.H.R. Green. But that doesn't have much to do with the Depression.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Most stories I have heard about the Great Depression impress me with the alacrity with which things deteriorated, and the incredulity with which the hard times were met. It just seemed inconceivable to people of the period that survival could have become so difficult so soon after the wonderful prosperity and progress of the 1920s, which looked like they would go on forever.
If only all stock market crashes could turn out like 1987, with no lasting impact on the economy (as Alan Greenspan has noted). But history tells us that, sometimes, crashes are a precursor to hard times. My concern about the coming stock-market meltdown is not the crash itself (stocks are much better buys after a crash, after all). It is that the crash will be so severe that it will dash the hopes and dreams of millions and lead to an unwinding of the credit bubble and to a downward economic spiral, as the ugly features of a deteriorating lifestyle feed on each other to make times even tougher. Even those of us who believe the excesses in the economy (and especially the stock market) need to be corrected would not wish, even on our enemies, the hardships that befell millions of unprepared souls in the 1930s. Let us hope we do not find ourselves in a few years' time wondering, as our parents or grandparents did two generations ago, "Where did the good times go?"
Dow 700,000 is about 100 times the level it is at now (I'll give them Dow 7,000 free of charge). Let's see how things look if this claim were made at the height of other monster bull markets of the past:
1997: 7000 -- 2047: 700,000
1966 995 -- 2016: 99,500
1929: 381 -- 1979: 38,100; actual level was around 850
If you are UltraSuperPermaBullish, you could see the Dow at 99,500 in just 20 years, but I don't think anyone will go that far at this point. The 1929 case is a no-brainer since the Dow came up woefully short of the projected 38,100 by 1979 and was actually only a bit more than double by that time. So in pretty much a worst-case scenario, the Dow could end up at only 15,000 after 50 years if the pattern after 1929 is to be repeated.
Taking the best-case scenario on record from the present back to 1946, the Dow is up only around 30 times... very good, but still far from a 100-fold gain. In addition, 1946 was very close to the bottom of a long-term secular bear market that didn't end until 1942; I don't think it could be argued that we are at such a point right now.
....It seems that, at the height of bull markets, you begin to hear claims of higher and higher prices continuing forever. I guess the next cover I see will be Dow 1,000,000... tomorrow!
- Marc Sexton (Fiend SuperBear)
Here is the great risk in a major market crisis: Five million consciences start screaming at their owners, "You knew better, yet you did nothing. You fool!" ....There is no determination like the determination to get out of a market when it is too late, especially when your own mind is telling you, "You could have gotten out earlier. You knew. You knew! You didn't get out when you could." - Gary North
We are talking about acts of violence that are not sanctioned by the government - that are not official. - Robert Reich (soon-to-be-ex-Secretary of Labor), differentiating the bombing of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City from the attack on the Branch Davidians at Waco.
"Look", I said, "the stock market is a bubble. It's up over 60% since 1994, and it has become much more overvalued than it was at the peak in 1929. Just how much higher do you think it's going to go?" "You know", he said, "I don't really pay much attention to the stock market, but lately I've been noticing that stock prices are just ridiculous"... and then he went into a long discourse about how true business profits, after making allowances for the "special writeoffs" and other ways companies cook their books, do not justify such exorbitant prices. "My mutual fund portfolio doubled last year", he said; "that can't go on forever".
"I'm telling everybody who's willing to listen to get out now", I said. "I can't promise you the market won't go higher. I can't tell you that it won't do the same thing the Japanese market did in 1988 and 1989, and go to prices which are 60 times earnings. I have to be honest, and say that I sat out the 1995-96 rise because stocks were already overvalued when they began to take off in the spring of 1995; and I certainly could be wrong this time, too. But it does seem to me that if you can see that the high stock prices aren't justified by what you see going on in the business world, you ought to sense that it's going to end badly, and that the risk of staying in stocks is very high".
"Well", he said, "you're right. I've been thinking of getting out of stocks, and I'm going to do it. I'll call the plan manager tomorrow." (Meaning, he'd been worrying about the safety of his retirement plan, and I had "tipped him over the edge" to sell to the sleeping point.)
Two weeks later we met at the Lowell Registry of Motor Vehicles to swap plates. After the transactions were done, I asked him, "Did you get out of stocks?" "Yes". "Did you get out before Greenspan opened his mouth?" "Yes".
Well, one soul saved; I'm glad my brother is not the "greatest fool" (allegorically speaking, of course).
Another friend is young enough to ride out all but the most severe bear markets to capture the long-term upward trend in stocks. In late November I said to him, "You should be out of the stock market. Everybody, no matter what age, should be out, even young people." (He is a subscriber, but sometimes my subscribers seem to think that my warnings apply to everybody else, but not to them; they are magically immune from financial harm.) In mid-December, I asked him, "Did you get out of stocks?" Yes, in his 401(k), but not in the mutual funds in his personal portfolio, because of the taxes he'd have to pay.
Well, I said, that's a reasonable position to take.... lose it to taxes or lose it to the bear, it really doesn't matter, either way the money is lost. While I am on this point, let me say that I cannot see any justification for owning any mutual fund (other than an index fund) which is not wrapped inside some sort of tax-sheltered account. Most funds are managed with no thought at all to the tax consequences, and the typical portfolio turnover of 100% or more per year guarantees that virtually all of the year's gain will be taxable income (as a capital gains distribution). Portfolio turnover in an index fund is typically 4% per year; you pay taxes on the pass-through dividends, but most of the capital appreciation goes untaxed until you sell the fund's shares.
Ever hear of a capital-loss distribution? No, neither have I; mutual funds distribute only gains, if any. In a bear market, the losses are reflected in the decline in the net asset values of the shares. People claim that mutual fund investors are more "sophisticated" and "risk-aware" today and will not sell in a bear market. Baloney! Even if the novices do not panic, which I think they will, they will still sell for tax reasons. When your mutual-fund account is underwater and looks like it will never come back, why, redeem it for the loss, share that loss (up to $3000 worth, with a carryforward) with Uncle Sam, and swap into a different fund, probably one that didn't take such a beating in the bear. (Like, maybe, energy, or gold, or REITs, or bonds.) Even if you "buy-and-hold", it doesn't mean you have to hold onto the same fund when it's to your advantage to swap.... as the money managers will learn the hard way, someday soon.
I have had several readers inquire if money-market funds will be safe in the meltdown. Probably.... a few might "break the buck", but the sponsoring companies know that would be such a breach of faith that they stand ready to support their money-market funds with their own capital, as they have in the past. What I do definitely recommend is that you check your money-market fund's prospectus to make sure the fund company cannot borrow from the money-market fund to pay for redemptions from its equity funds (that is, substitute its own commercial paper for that of independent issuers). Fidelity and Vanguard, for example, have already gotten SEC approval for this; it's likely to become common among the largest fund families. If your fund family has arranged for bank lines of credit in the event of heavy equity redemptions, that's OK; the firm's capital base may become impaired, but your money-market fund should be safe. If in doubt, put your "cash" in Treasury bills or a money-market fund that invests only in government paper. (I don't have this option with TIAA-CREF, but their money-market fund is well diversified and can't be borrowed from.)
More typical of the inquiries I get is this one from an Internet reader: Hey Nick, just saw your page for first time. I am a baby-boomer (39) with most of my retirement and son's college funds in mutual funds. My portfolio is pretty aggressive. I am concerned that the stock market is rising too high, and that I should change my stance. Can you make a suggestion?
Boy, talk about blind faith that stocks only go up! But the seeds of the bear can be seen.... when too many know-nothings become "concerned that the stock market is rising too high". My reply was:
If I were in your position, I would immediately move all investments in tax-free plans (IRAs, 401(k)s, variable annutities, etc.) into money-market funds, preferably US Treasury-type money funds, if available in the plans. For investments that are not tax-free, I would at a minimum sell enough to recoup my original investment and pay any taxes due, and let the rest ride. An alternative would be to protect the portfolio with long-term puts.
You are living on borrowed time. The current bubble has already made the 1929 bull market look like a piker. There is no guarantee that our stock market will continue to rise to levels comparable to those of Japanese stocks in 1989, but that is, implicitly, exactly what everybody who remains in stocks today expects. (Indeed, it may happen, but my money won't be in it.)
For people who must remain invested in stocks, I suggest keeping funds in money-market funds, then using the interest received to purchase LEAP calls on one's favorite stocks. Then, should stocks go up 40% in 1997, one will have captured about 32% of that move, but with complete downside protection.
People who don't pay any attention to me can expect their portfolios to eventually "regress to the mean", yielding 5% to 8% compounded per year after allowing for inflation. And that can include some pretty lean periods.
I am not a permabear. Keep checking The Contrarian's View - there will again be a good time to buy stocks and mutual funds, I would expect from much lower levels.
Last month, I wrote that I thought December would be an uninteresting month for stocks, with no fireworks of note, and it might be a downer. That's just what happened, though the "downer" came in the very last day. Now we come into January.... which is likely to be as interesting as December was dull. I think investors will be afforded yet another chance to bail out at high prices up till about inauguration time (January 18), possibly with even more new Dow highs, then some intense selling will arrive in the latter half of the month. (Will the reminder that we are stuck with a corrupt president for up to another four years be a trigger for this investor gloom?) The meltdown could arrive shortly thereafter, or we could have a series of violent swings carrying us into February or the spring; but either way, I currently don't expect the meltdown to be more than a few months away, at most. (As we get closer to the event, I'll try to fine-tune the timing.)
For those of you patiently waiting for this moment of truth to arrive, just remember: Stocks cannot climb at triple or more the rate of {economic growth + inflation} indefinitely; eventually they must reflect the true values of the assets for which they are proxies, irrespective of the timing of this adjustment. The Japanese clearly demonstrated this in 1990.... as did the buyers of Dutch tulip bulbs in the 1600s, the owners of Mississippi or South Seas shares in the 1700s, or the buyers of Florida swampland in the 1920s.
A. "Phoenix" -real portfolio, begun on October 1, 1995.
Original cost: $ 8,090.45
Present value: $ 7,355.07
Increase: $ -735.38 [-9.09%]
Yield: $ 311.53 [3.87%]
The performance of this portfolio and its predecessors ("Hedger's Delight", "Present and Future Income", "Crapshooter's Folly") from January 1987 to the present is +3.09%, for a compound annual rate of return of 0.30%.
B. "Professors' Investment Group (PIG)" - investment club portfolio.
COMMENT on "PIG": The professors have bought a gold stock, Barrick Resources, without any prompting from me! (I have not been able to make the last few meetings.) What do they know that I don't know?
C. Fidelity IRA - real portfolio, includes commissions:
SUMMARY - IRA:
Original (1983-86) cost: $ 8,326.19
Present value: $18,234.37
Increase: $ 9,908.18 [119.00%]
Current yield: $ 226.05 [1.03%]
The performance of this portfolio (including its predecessors) from January 1, 1987 to the present is +66.26%, for a compound annual rate of return of 5.22%.
D. CREF Pension plan; I switch between indexed stock/bond/money funds:
Date Sold Bought
13Mar92 stock @ 56.65 MM @ 13.41
29Apr92 MM @ 13.48 bond @ 31.19
19Jun92 bond @ 32.14 MM @ 13.55
29Jun92 MM @ 13.57 stock @ 56.74
24Jul92 stock @ 56.76 MM @ 13.61
29Oct92 MM @ 13.72 stock @ 58.61
23Dec92 stock @ 61.48 MM @ 13.78
16Jan95 MM @ 14.83 equity-index @ 26.44
20Jan95 eq-index @ 26.19 MM @ 14.84
Values, 31Dec96: stock, 109.22; MM, 16.50
Gain, 1988: 18.91%; 1989: 14.48%; 1990: 8.28%; 1991: 27.93%; 1992: 10.20%; 1993: 3.08%; 1994: 4.07%; 1995: 4.80%
Gain, January 1 through September 30, 1996: 3.93% (5.28% annual rate)
Total gain since January 1, 1988 (8.75 years): 142.81%
Compound annual rate of return: 10.67% (My long-term target: in excess of 15%)
Gain shown excludes the impact of additional monthly cash contributions.
Buying CREF stock on January 1, 1988 and holding it gained 227.69%, for a compound annual rate of return of 14.53%.
COMMENT on "Timer's Trend" : Still bullish, in spite of the sharp December 31 selloff. A mid-December sell signal fooled me.... I thought it was the "real thing", but it turned out to be a whipsaw. Look for the "real thing" to finally arrive in January or early February.
{, } = "Timer's Trend" (4% and 10% exponential) SELL ({) or BUY (}) signal
=============================TIMER'S TREND===========================
Fri 8 Nov 96 . | . # | 6219.82 | . + *
Mon 11 Nov 96 . | . # | 6255.60 |~.~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Tue 12 Nov 96 . | .# | 6266.04 | . + *
Wed 13 Nov 96 . | .# | 6274.24 | . + *
Thu 14 Nov 96 . | . # | 6313.00 |~.~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Fri 15 Nov 96 . | . # | 6348.03 | . + *
Mon 18 Nov 96 . | .# | 6346.91 | . + *
Tue 19 Nov 96 . | . # | 6397.60 |~.~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Wed 20 Nov 96 . | . # | 6430.02 | . + *
Thu 21 Nov 96 . | # | 6418.47 | . + *
Fri 22 Nov 96 . | . # | 6471.76 |~.~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Mon 25 Nov 96 . | . # | 6547.79 |~.~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Tue 26 Nov 96 . | .# | 6528.41 | . + *
Wed 27 Nov 96 . | .# | 6499.34 | . + *
Fri 29 Nov 96 . | . # | 6521.70 | . + *
Mon 2 Dec 96 . | .# | 6521.70 | . + *
Tue 3 Dec 96 . | # | 6442.69 |~*~ +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wed 4 Dec 96 . | # | 6422.94 |~.~ +*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thu 5 Dec 96 . | .# | 6437.10 | . + *
Fri 6 Dec 96 .# I . | 6381.94 *~ +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mon 9 Dec 96 . | . # | 6463.94 | .+ *
Tue 10 Dec 96 . | .# | 6473.25 | .+ *
Wed 11 Dec 96 # I . | 6402.52 | + *
Thu 12 Dec 96 . & . | 6303.71 | +.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fri 13 Dec 96 . & . | 6304.87 |+. *
Mon 16 Dec 96 .# I . {| 6268.35 |-*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tue 17 Dec 96 . #I . | 6308.33 | - *
Wed 18 Dec 96 . I #. ]| 6346.77 |-. *
Thu 19 Dec 96 . | . # }| 6473.64 +~.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Fri 20 Dec 96 . | .# | 6484.40 |+. *
Mon 23 Dec 96 . | #. | 6489.02 | + *
Tue 24 Dec 96 . | . # | 6522.85 |~. +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Thu 26 Dec 96 . | . # | 6546.68 | . + *
Fri 27 Dec 96 . | . # | 6560.91 | . + *
Mon 30 Dec 96 . | .# | 6549.37 | . + *
Tue 31 Dec 96 . | #. | 6448.27 | . + *
=====================================================================
[, ] = 4% exponential change unconfirmed by 10% exponential (not a signal).
@ = market overbought or oversold. I or & (on baseline) = 10% exponential SELL.