SUMMARY - "PIG":
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
So what is going on? I was amused by the commentary I read, as we approached October 19, that both the 1929 and 1989 crashes occurred 55 days after the Dow peaks in those years, and that pointed to a crash on October 19.... particularly with stocks looking really sick for the few days leading up to the 19th. C'mon, now, didn't you think that the powers-that-be would do everything necessary within their control to prevent a crash on the 19th of October, especially with so much media attention focused on the date? Of course.
Similarly, don't you think the manipulators are striving mightily to keep the Dow above 10,000, as that is an important psychological inflection point? Of course.
Meanwhile, the bear market..... which, you will recall, has been ongoing for a year and a half.... has forcefully asserted itself in every area except the few large-capitalization stocks that. prop up the popular averages. Small-cap stocks look sick, with two-thirds of them 20% or more below their bull-market highs. We have formal bear-market signals from Dow Theory (both Utilities and Transports are in bear-market swoons) and from almost any moving-average switching system you care to use.... 50-day, 200 day, 30-week, "Timer's Trend", whatever. The advance/decline lines on the NYSE and NASDAQ are pathetic, with that of the NYSE regularly hitting new multiyear lows. A money-market fund has performed better this year, and certainly since April 1999, than the average mutual fund.
Where we still have a "bull" market (that is, lots of bull) is from the talking airheads on TV and in the mainstream financial media. Do these people have a vested interest in making you think that the bull market still lives? Just because they earn a living from commissions and fees on your money, or from writing about same? Nah, no conflict here.
The "bull market" hypothesis is now a myth.... a lie.... but it is a believable lie, thanks to the press. When the lie is no longer believed, panic will ensue. And the longer the popular averages are kept propped up and are further distanced from reality, the more sudden and greater will be the panic when the investing public finally realizes the truth.
So, even though historical precedent does not guarantee a precise time frame when the crash will arrive, don't be impatient. Yeah, by all rights this sucker should have rolled over dead by now. But look at it this way: We are guaranteed a plunge in the popular averages before the end of January 2000, thanks to Y2K - the economic dislocations it will create will be simply too massive to be ignored by any investor. After a year-and-a-half wait (since April 1998) or more for the lie to be exposed, not even the massive power of government is likely to be able to mask the truth for more than another three months. We won't have to wait much longer.
From early January 2000, we can work backwards: Y2K failures are likely to accelerate sharply in the last week of December 1999, as we approach the boundary, so that is a likely week for panic (maybe more than just financial panic!). Cory Hamasaki feels that there's likely to be a cluster of Y2K accounting-system failures at the beginning of December (the so-called "Jo Anne Effect", a month's look-ahead which opens the year "00"), so that is another likely week for panic if it hasn't occurred before then.
But it's possible that Y2K could be the trigger for a panic even earlier. Certainly Y2K has been one of the most-ignored clouds on the investment horizon (along with earnings, dividends, intrinsic value, derivatives debacles, recession flags, collapse of overseas economies....), but as we approach year's end it occasionally imprints itself on investors' psyches, typically as lowered earnings or earnings expectations, or as a contributor to higher interest rates (increased risk premium due to uncertainty of what will happen at rollover). Maybe someday soon investors will figure out that Y2K is real, has been expensive to fix (or try to fix), and that the remediation has failed; only the extent of the failure and its fallout have yet to be revealed.
OK, Nick, you say, suppose you're wrong. Suppose the Fed, or its agents and friends, do have the clout to keep the Dow above 10,000, even through Y2K!
Well, let them do it, I say. You buy-and-hold-forever fanatics
can continue to collect your 1.5% to 1.7% dividend yield for the
next 20 to 40 years, while we more skeptical types earn between
5% and 6% in money-market funds, or (currently) more than 7% in
certain classes of perfectly-safe government bonds. Meanwhile,
I'll search around for stocks, or other markets, that are not
manipulated; if I'm going to take on equity risk, I'd rather not
take on the added risk that my holdings will plunge just because
some turkey of a bureaucrat overreached, failed, and screwed up
big-time.
Dear [First Name, Last Name]:
Your American Express Accounts have been cancelled:
Gold...Card Amount Due... $183,666.00
Optima...Minimum Payment Due... $24,400
All Cards and/or checks issued in connection with these accounts are no longer valid and must be destroyed immediately. Under no circumstances should any attempt be made by you or any Additional Cardmember to use any Card(s) and/or checks issued on these accounts. All charges will be denied. Please send us your payments for the totals due on your last statements.
The reasons for our decision to cancel your accounts are:
You are presently past due on one or more of the above accounts. (If you have not done so already, please mail your payment in the enclosed envelope.)
Your payment history with American Express has been unsatisfactory.
You are hereby notified that a negative credit report reflecting your credit record may be submitted to a consumer reporting agency if you fail to fulfill the terms of your credit obligations.
Sincerely,
The message to him regarding his card is clear: "Don't leave home with it."
The man runs a print shop. How did he get into the hole to the tune of $183,666? He didn't.
He called American Express. He was told that all of their computers were down and to call back later.
The man was on the road. He didn't leave home without his American Express card. The hotel rejected it.
Computers make mistakes. What happens to American Express or any other credit-issuing organization if this happens to such an extent that dunning letters get sent out to tens of thousands of people? How about the threatened consumer credit bureau reports? The words "class action suit" come to mind.
We live by plastic in the United States. What if the computers melt the plastic?
I called AmEx at the number on the dunning letter. I tried to get clarification. I explained that I was a reporter asking about the bill. I was told, "You are not making any sense." I asked repeatedly for a supervisor. Miss B. refused to give me the name of one or transfer me to one. I asked three times.
I have never dealt with a Fortune 500 company that allows its clerks categorically refuse to allow a caller to speak with a supervisor. When the caller identifies himself as a reporter who is about to post a story, the customer relations person really should shift res-possibility to a higher employee. Not Miss B. She held the hammer. She simply refused.
This is stonewalling. When a low-level phone lady knows that a reporter is on the line and wants clarification regarding a $183,000 bill, and she refuses to say anything except, "You are not making any sense," three times, and will not put on a supervisor, that company has major public relations problems. It surely has a chain-of-command problem.
Multiply this bill across tens of thousands of card holders in 2000. Could it happen? Maybe. But do not ask Miss B. Maybe her supervisor knows what is going on. I was not able to find out.
Miss B. was the second lady I spoke with. The first one had put me on hold to get her supervisor. I was on hold so long that the connection died.
When fears over the Year 2000 problem are rising, computer glitches like this one make customers nervous. When they are shut off from anyone who can tell them what is going on, they get even more nervous. Managers should know this. They should not allow stonewalling. They should have someone who can provide cogent answers.
Of course, the cogent answer may be, "our computers went haywire
in our y2k upgrade." That, they may not wish to admit.
Our money is not wealth as wealth has traditionally been known. Our money is 'borrowed' into existence. It is not wealth. It is debt. At its heart this is fraud, and assuredly this fraud is about to be caught out.
Our money supply, as reflected in M1, M2 and M3 has increased, in the last three years alone (96-99) as much as it has in the preceding ten years (86-96). That is not merely an extraordinary expansion. In is beyond extraordinary. It is insane.
Normally, when you have a situation like this, that is, too many dollars chasing too few goods, inflation is the result. That is, inflation in prices of goods and services that are more or less 'tangible' to the everyday person. But, that is not the case. So where is the inflation? Apparently we have no measurable inflation where the inflation is normally felt. But the money has been pumped in. It had to go somewhere. Where did it go? If there is no inflation in goods and services, then the inflation HAD to have occurred somewhere else, make no mistake about it. There can not be that much dough pumped into the system and something not blow up wildly out of whack. It did. What is it that has inflated so much in the last few years way way out of balance with the rest of the economy? Asset inflation. All that money as a result of the increased credit expansion has gone into asset inflation. Bizarrely high salaries of CEOs. Ridiculous stock option packages. And first and foremost, the dizzying expansion of share prices in the stock market. This is where it has all gone.
What happens when it comes out? The same thing that happens every time that there are to many dollars chasing too few goods, inflation that you can actually feel. Except this time, the effects of that absurd credit expansion were masked. Not only were the effects masked, but BECAUSE they were masked, the money supply continued to increase. It continued to increase because the Federal Reserve Board manipulated interest rates to continue the advance of the credit expansion, and therefore the economic expansion. They have done this unwittingly. But, at what price?
The piper has to be paid. It is very hydraulic. The 'money' (debt) has been pumped in. It has to go somewhere. Sooner or later, it has to go somewhere.
What happens when it comes out of the markets? The same thing that would have happened if it had not resulted in an asset inflation in the first place. It will result in inflation in goods and services. But, with a HUGE difference. Had the increase in the money supply NOT gone into asset inflation, it would have gone into traditional channels and would have been felt far sooner in the pockets of Joe Sixpack. The Federal Reserve Board could have done something about it by raising rates to curtail the expanding credit, heading off inflation at the pass, so to speak. But, it was masked, and they did not. So now, instead of having to deal with a small increment of the effects of the increased money supply, they will be left to deal with the effects of every penny of the increase, all at once, and in an amount far far far larger than they ever could have handled had they done so incrementally.
In other words, inflation will come back. If the stock market deflates, in a big way, and I believe it will, inflation will come rip-roaring back as the flood of debt ('money' created by credit expansion borrowed into existence) comes rushing out. Not a creep-up in inflationary values. It will come back with a screaming vengeance like never before. It is going to make the Weimar Republic look like a week at Disneyland.
This is the economic context of Y2k. Not only do we have a horrendous debt situation created by credit expansion that has had its real effects masked, we are going to have to face that in tandem with the technological dependencies kicked out from underneath us. We will see a huge decrease in goods and services produced at the same time that we see this huge amount of money flowing back out. So there will be wildly wildly wildly too many dollars chasing an incredibly decreased amount of goods and services. In other words, there will be MULTIPLES of the 'normal' amount of dollars looking for even MORE scarce amounts of goods. A double whammy. This is not a mere recipe for disaster. It goes way beyond that.
Even without the effects of Y2k, the insane debt driven credit expansion will have its day of reckoning. Y2K is the match that lights the fuse to the credit expansion bomb.
So long, suckers.
Have we not learned anything from history? It is just shocking that our financial authorities have chosen to sit back and let this bubble run. But that is exactly what they have done and, unfortunately, there is going to be a huge price to pay from their shunning responsibility for protecting the soundness and stability of our financial system. - David W. Tice
....history tells us that sharp reversals in confidence occur abruptly, most often with little advance notice. These reversals can be self-reinforcing processes that can compress sizable adjustments into a very short period. Panic reactions in the market are characterized by dramatic shifts in behavior that are intended to minimize short-term losses. Claims on far-distant future values are discounted to insignificance. What is so intriguing.... is that this type of behavior has characterized human interaction with little appreciable change over the generations. Whether Dutch tulip bulbs or Russian equities, the market price patterns remain much the same.... Probability distributions estimated largely, or exclusively, over cycles that do not include periods of panic will underestimate the likelihood of extreme price movements because they fail to capture a secondary peak at the extreme negative tail that reflects the probability of occurrence of a panic.... The uncertainties inherent in valuation of assets and potential for abrupt changes in perceptions of those uncertainties clearly must be adjudged by risk managers at banks and other financial intermediaries. - Alan Greenspan [October 14, 1999. Nick's translation: Listen up, bank managers, your loan portfolios are going to take a big hit when the stock market crashes, and you'd better be ready for it.]
Following the Russian default of August 1998, public capital markets in the United States virtually seized up. For a time, not even investment-grade bond issuers could find reasonable takers. While Federal Reserve easing shortly thereafter doubtless was a factor, it is not credible that this move fully explained the dramatic restoration of most, though not all, markets in a matter of weeks. The problems in our markets appeared too deep-seated to be readily unwound solely by a cumulative 75 basis point ease in overnight rates. Arguably, at least as important was the existence of backup financial institutions, especially commercial banks, that replaced the intermediation function of the public capital markets. As public debt issuance fell, commercial bank lending accelerated, effectively filling in some of the funding gap. Even though bankers also moved significantly to risk aversion, previously committed lines of credit, in conjunction with Federal Reserve ease, were an adequate backstop to business financing, and the impact on the real economy of the capital market turmoil was blunted. Firms were able to sustain production, and business and consumer confidence was not threatened. A vicious circle of initial disruption leading to losses and then further erosion in the financial sector never got established. What we perceived in the United States in 1998 may reflect an important general principle: Multiple alternatives to transform an economy's savings into capital investment act as backup facilities should the primary form of intermediation fail. In 1998 in the United States, banking replaced the capital markets. - Alan Greenspan [October 19, 1999. Nick's translation: After the Russians defaulted on their bonds, and liquidity dried up, at our direction government-regulated institutions started lending like crazy to meet the shortfall. This prevented the asset bubble from popping in 1998 and has kept it inflated to the present. We believe we can continue to do this sort of thing indefinitely.]
Today, it is most critical to recognize the powerful role now played by the "Government-Sponsored Enterprises," largely the Federal Home Loan Bank System, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. While their original mandate was to provide lending to homeowners during a deep credit contraction, they have evolved to become the dominant institutions providing an ongoing flow of financial market liquidity, ensuring sufficient fuel is purveyed to perpetuate a dangerous financial and economic bubble. For example, when the credit markets faltered in 1994 after a period of reckless financial leveraging and speculating excesses, the GSE's came to the rescue. During 1994, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHLB combined to increase total assets by $138 billion, or almost 30%. For comparison, their total assets increased $77 billion in 1993 and $54 billion in 1992. And then last year, with the hedge funds and our over-leveraged financial system in very serious trouble, the "Big Three" expanded assets by an astonishing $306 billion. Importantly, there was clearly no contraction in credit to the housing sector last year that would necessitate such zeal. After all, the housing market was booming. Instead, these institutions responded to faltering credit market liquidity that was the inevitable consequence of previous unprecedented leveraged speculation. - David W. Tice
The literally thousands of heart-breaking instances of inability of working people to attain renewal of expiring mortgages on favorable terms, and the consequent loss of their homes, have been one of the tragedies of this depression. - Herbert Hoover
Consider initiatives in recent years to require tenants in public housing to allow their apartments to be searched: First, police failed for decades, for justifiable but also far too frequently unjustifiable reasons, to protect citizens in many of our most dangerous public housing projects. Next, as the situation became sufficiently desperate, tenants were prohibited from owning firearms for their own defense. Finally the demand came, "Surrender your right to privacy in your home." The message could not be clearer: A people incapable of protecting themselves will lose their rights as a free people, becoming either servile dependents of the state or of the criminal predators who are their de facto masters. - Robert J. Cottrol
You know what's wrong with public education? Nothing. What's
wrong is society. Let's face facts. We have a materialistic and
morally depraved culture. We have a two-tier economy, with the
poor getting poorer. Among poverty, ignorance and moral depravity, many children show up for their first day at school with
scarred psyches, undeveloped intellects and often poorly nourished bodies. And to make matters even worse, how the schools can
cope with this flood of injured children is dictated by politicians and federal judges -- theorists dictating this and that
without an ounce of experiential knowledge of education. I'm
surprised, frankly, that there are still people willing to try to
teach children. - Charley Reese
The federal government now says that 97 percent of their critical systems are compliant. I'm having a very hard time believing it. My conversations with heavy-duty technical types convince me that what is going on is hasty (read sloppy) remediation followed by insufficient testing -- all done under poor technical management. - Jim Lord
Until very recently I maintained a very benign view of the [Y2K] situation. As a data-processing professional I am keenly aware of the efforts being made by our major corporations to address the problem. However, I'm becoming a little less comfortable as time passes. Recent observations lead me to believe that the U.S. is less prepared than I once thought. It isn't that the effort is not being made, but rather that problems are slipping through the cracks. The whole picture is distorted further by the unknown position of foreign suppliers and others in the chain. I am coming around to the view of a very good friend of mine, "I can't see how it can be a positive for either our financial markets or our economy". I am now personally deferring all equity purchases until after the beginning of next year. I can't see much plus side in rushing into equities at this time, but I can see some downside. I suspect that lots of other investors feel the same way. - Wayne Crimi
I hear there are two "bet the company on it" systems going into production in the next month in Maryland. The architects, designers, CIOs in charge all moved on, retired, quit, got transfers in the last year. Strangely, even people who are only peripherally involved with the systems are leaving for greener pastures. One system is being slammed into production by an ex secretary, no college, ZERO programming experience, no project management, a classic case of an IT disaster. Yes, this is secondhand info from programmer pals. Take it for what it's worth. - Cory Hamasaki
To trust in government propaganda is to park your brains and open
your wallet. - Gary North
So, I think we should face the possibility that the Fed has again managed to keep the bubble from popping (aided, this time, by the lack of an obvious external trigger). Remember, a stock market crash in modern times implies some sort of failure by government to contain it; but each rescue increases moral hazard. Certainly, investors have come to expect that the Fed won't allow a crash.... or for that matter, even a bear market in certain stocks, because that would bring on a crash.... which means that, under normal circumstances, we could expect even more money to be concentrated in the few dozen stocks that keep the DJIA and S&P 500 afloat.
By avoiding the October blues.... and by struggling through November, which also tends to be a weak month for stocks.... the market would successfully slide into the December-April period, typically a seasonally-strong period for stocks. EXCEPT - some of our biggest bear markets, notably 1973-74, have begun in January; AND, Y2K is coming up.
With October over, we're now hearing the familiar year-end calls for a great year, both economically and financially, in 2000 (after, maybe, a little slowdown at year's end). Economists (particularly those of the buy-and-hold-forever persuasion) like to point out how the stock market has "predicted nine of the last five recessions". Well, occasionally someone has the temerity to point out that 50 top economists have predicted exactly zero of the last dozen recessions so, overall, the stock market has done a much better job. (In 2000, though, we'll have to make an exception for Ed Yardeni.)
Once we remove ourselves from the stocks that are being propped up to keep the indexes afloat, and look at the rest of the stock market,we see that it has been signalling "recession ahead" for more than a year.... much more advance warning than we usually get. And this is before making allowances for Y2K (or, maybe, the universe of stocks that aren't being manipulated are anticipating Y2K). The lead time from bear market to recession is highly variable, so it is impossible to say just when the recession will arrive; the lead time can be up to two years. I, personally, prefer January 2000 as the arrival time for the next recession, as Y2K hits big-time.
Meanwhile, there is an enormous disconnect still operating between the onrushing Y2K hazard and its perceived impact on the economy and the financial markets. Take the Hershey Foods story as an example. Its older enterprise systems (large mainframes) were not Y2K-compliant, so Hershey elected to install new systems using SAP AG's software, along with a complete overhaul of networked clients. The upgrade has been, shall we say, somewhat less than successful, to the point where it has snarled Hershey's distribution system. (Hershey has to call its wholesalers to find out what they have received, because it doesn't know.) The screwups have attracted press attention, but in the mainstream media you will find no mention at all of Hershey's need to upgrade because of Y2K, and it receives only passing mention in the financial press. With reporting like this, no wonder Wall Street isn't more spooked by Y2K.
Yet Hershey's story reveals exactly what we can expect in 2000.... snarled distribution systems; shortages in some parts of the country and surpluses in others; loss (at least temporarily) of market share. Of course, new systems at corporations are continuously coming on-line; it's just that with Y2K, there will be a bulge of them all coming on-line at the same time as organizations rush to meet the immovable deadline, and it would be exceedingly optimistic to presume that none of these other implementations will experience the sort of problems that Hershey has seen.
Helloooooo, Wall Street! Is anybody over there paying any attention? Guess not.... looks like they're all asleep.
Original cost: $ 8,090.45
Present value: $ 5,856.68
Increase: $-2,233.77 [-27.61%]
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 -17.91%, for a compound annual rate of return of -1.51%. COMMENT on "Phoenix": No change from the last issue. (Cash balance is not up to date; in fact, is woefully out of date.)
B. "Professors' Investment Group (PIG)" - investment club portfolio.
SUMMARY - "PIG":
Original cost: $ 8,675.00
Present value: $ 8,750.50
Increase: $ 75.50 [+0.87%]
COMMENT on "PIG": The PIGS asked me to buy 50 shares of Elan (an
Irish pharmaceutical company) when it was trading around 33. I
was sick for a few days, then busy catching up with things, so I
didn't get to it right away. When I did get to it, Elan had just
announced that future earnings would suffer (not by very much, I
might add) due to a year's delay in FDA approval for a drug. Then
the "research analysts" jumped on the bandwagon and downgraded
Elan from "buy" or "strong buy" to "hold" (which in Wall Street
brokerspeak really means "sell"). If we didn't have a market
crash directly ahead, this would be a classic buying opportunity.... but I'm only one PIGs vote, so I had to buy it anyway....
60 shares at 25. Same amount of money, roughly, but 10 more
shares.... hope the other PIGs don't mind too much owning the
additional shares.
The PIGs' Web page is at http://www.assumption.edu/HTML/Faculty/Kantar/WPigs.html
C. Roth rollover IRA - real portfolio, includes commissions:
SUMMARY - IRA:
Original (1983-86) cost: $ 8,326.19
Present value: $11,561.81
Increase: $ 3,235.62 [+38.86]
The performance of this portfolio (including its predecessors)
from January 1, 1987 to the present is +5.42%, for a compound
annual rate of return of +0.41%.
D. CREF Pension plan; I switch between indexed stock/bond/money funds:
Date Sold Bought
13Mar1992 stock @ 56.65 MM @ 13.41
29Apr1992 MM @ 13.48 bond @ 31.19
19Jun1992 bond @ 32.14 MM @ 13.55
29Jun1992 MM @ 13.57 stock @ 56.74
24Jul1992 stock @ 56.76 MM @ 13.61
29Oct1992 MM @ 13.72 stock @ 58.61
23Dec1992 stock @ 61.48 MM @ 13.78
16Jan1995 MM @ 14.83 equity-index @ 26.44
20Jan1995 eq-index @ 26.19 MM @ 14.84
30Oct1997 MM@ 17.24 bond@47.56 (27.17%)
30Oct1997 MM@ 17.24 i-i bond@26.12 (27.17%)
11Feb1998 bond@ 48.84 MM@17.52 (27.17%)
11Feb1998 I-I bond@ 26.23 MM@17.52(27.17%)
16Jun1998 MM@ 17.84 TIAA Traditional (45.87%)
23Sep1999 MM@18.99 I-I bond@27.56 (53.32%)
Values, 29Oct1999: stock, 187.85; MM, 19.08; bond, 51.96;
inflation-indexed bond, 27.67; TIAA current yield in SRA, 6.75%
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%; 1996: 5.28%; 1997: 5.38%; 1998: 5.72%
Gain, January 1 through September 30, 1999: 4.129% (5.52%
annual rate of return)
Total gain since January 1, 1988 (11.75 years): 185.35%
Compound annual rate of return: 9.33% (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
472.60%, for a compound annual rate of return of 16.02%.
E. Current unfilled portfolio good-til-cancelled orders: None.
COMMENT on "Timer's Trend": The July 20 SELL signal is still in effect.
______________________________ TIMER'S TREND _________________________________ Wed 11 Aug 99 . #I . |10787.80 | . - * Thu 12 Aug 99 .# I . |10789.39 | . - * Fri 13 Aug 99 . & . |10973.65 | .- * Mon 16 Aug 99 .# I . |11046.79 | .- * Tue 17 Aug 99 . & . |11117.08 |-. * Wed 18 Aug 99 .# I . |10991.38 | - * Thu 19 Aug 99 .# I . |10963.84 | - * Fri 20 Aug 99 . I# . |11100.61 |-. * Mon 23 Aug 99 . I #. |11299.76 |-. * Mon 23 Aug 99 . I #. |11299.76 |-.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~* Tue 24 Aug 99 .# I . |11283.30 |-. * Wed 25 Aug 99 . I# . |11326.04 + . * Thu 26 Aug 99 # I . |11198.45 |-. * Fri 27 Aug 99 # I . |11090.17 |-. * Mon 30 Aug 99 # . I . |10914.13 | .- * Tue 31 Aug 99 # . I . |10829.28 |~.~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wed 1 Sep 99 .# I . |10937.88 | . - * Thu 2 Sep 99 # . I . |10843.21 | . - * Fri 3 Sep 99 . I # |11078.45 | . - * Tue 7 Sep 99 . & . |11034.13 | - * Wed 8 Sep 99 .# I . |11036.34 | - * Thu 9 Sep 99 . & . |11079.40 |-. * Fri 10 Sep 99 . I# . |11028.43 + . * Mon 13 Sep 99 # I . |11030.33 |-. * Tue 14 Sep 99 # . I . |10910.33 | - * Wed 15 Sep 99 # . I . |10801.40 | .- * Thu 16 Sep 99 # . I . |10737.46 | . - * Fri 17 Sep 99 . #I . |10803.63 | . - * Mon 20 Sep 99 #. I . |10823.90 | . - * Tue 21 Sep 99 # . I . |10598.47 | . - * Wed 22 Sep 99 # . I . |10524.07 | . -* Thu 23 Sep 99 # . I . |10318.59 *~.~~-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fri 24 Sep 99 # . I . |10279.33 @| . - * Mon 27 Sep 99 # I . |10303.39 @| . - * Tue 28 Sep 99 # . I . |10275.53 @| . - * Wed 29 Sep 99 #. I . |10213.48 | . - * Thu 30 Sep 99 .# I . |10336.95 | . - * Fri 1 Oct 99 # . I . |10273.00 | . - * Mon 4 Oct 99 . #I . |10401.23 | . - * Tue 5 Oct 99 # I . |10277.11 | .- * Wed 6 Oct 99 . & . |10588.34 | - * Thu 7 Oct 99 # I . |10537.05 | .- * Fri 8 Oct 99 # I . |10649.76 | - * Mon 11 Oct 99 .# I . |10648.18 | .- * Tue 12 Oct 99 # . I . |10417.06 | .- * Wed 13 Oct 99 # . I . |10232.16 | . - * Thu 14 Oct 99 # . I . |10286.61 | . - * Fri 15 Oct 99 # . I . |10019.71 @| . * Mon 18 Oct 99 # . I . |10116.28 @| . - * Tue 19 Oct 99 #. I . |10204.93 @| . - * Wed 20 Oct 99 # I . |10392.36 | . - * Thu 21 Oct 99 # . I . |10297.69 | . - * Fri 22 Oct 99 . #I . |10470.25 | . - * Mon 25 Oct 99 # . I . |10349.93 | . - * Tue 26 Oct 99 # . I . |10302.13 | . - * Wed 27 Oct 99 # I . |10394.89 | . - * Thu 28 Oct 99 . I #. |10622.53 | .- * Fri 29 Oct 99 . I # |10729.86 | - * ========================================================================"Timer's Trend" is based on 4% and 10% exponential moving averages of the New York Stock Exchange advance/decline line (that is, the ratio of advancing to declining stocks). There are many symbols shown above, but the ones that count are the braces: {, } = "Timer's Trend" (4% exponential confirmed by 10% exponential) SELL ({) or BUY(}) signal.
NEXT ISSUE - will appear about November 29. /Nick Chase