"Despite the strong bullishness, we see just a little reason to worry, in that on Friday, several of the major high tech sectors, as well as the NASDAQ as a whole broke through major support to complete bearish patterns that imply as much as 10 or 15% more downside (on nasdaq and particularly the computer sector)."

With the NASDAQ then hitting 2859 and closing at just under 3000, the implications were for the nasdaq to bottom at somewhere between about 2515 and 2670. At this point, we feel that prices in most high tech areas are not really going much lower. The NASDAQ has both come down the maximum percent we had predicted upon its breaking through support at around 3000-3100 and is also sitting on a major support area in the mid- to high 2500s. The question many ask is "Has the market bottomed now?" We believe the best answer to that right now is, "We're close enough." We believe that we are now close enough to absolute lows, particularly in the semiconductor and computer areas, and close to at least near term lows in the biotech area, to buy now and participate in virtually all upside, while risking very, very little on the downside. We are not, however, looking for a market that will move straight back up, as the market did last May. The way we're reading this, while there should be very little if any downside, we are likely to stay in a trading range for possibly as long as a month or two. Additionally, we don't really follow pharmaceuticals as one of our focus industries, but if anyone out there is invested in this sector (some of these stocks are up 50-80% from their year lows), we are starting to get strong sells in the area, and it would be a good time to take profits. Despite the bullish signs for the majority of high tech sectors in the market, yesterday both the DOW and the S&P Mid-cap broke through support levels which leave the next area of support from 5-7% lower than current levels, putting the Dow at around 10,000 in the upcoming future. We would advise caution in trading and recommend against any buys in these areas in the near future.

Tuesday, November 21, 2000:  Today's signals were even broader than yesterday, with approximately the same market strength factor as yesterday (272 vs. 275), again, the highest on the bullish side that we've seen this year. We've also been getting very bullish signs on international indexes, particularly for Germany and Hong Kong. Additionally, we've got strong bullish signals on both optical networking (like jdsu, nt, digl, lu) and wireless stocks (like mot, ericy, nxtl, puma), although we would suggest looking at comparative valuations before making purchases in these sectors.

Monday, November 20,2000:  It's been a week since we've put out our last market commentary, as until now the situation had not really changed. Last Monday, our proprietary index had the strongest bullish reading since the May bottom, suggesting a possible strong upmove, however we did not have a full buy signal, indicating that the true, prolonged upmove was NOT yet ready to begin. After six consecutive down days, the market proceeded to bounce, with some sectors rising as much as 15 or 20% in a few days, but has since returned to week-ago levels (and below) to await the true upmove. We believe that time is here. With the exception of biotech, the high-tech industries that we follow are all at or near their 52 week lows. Our proprietary index (which if other criteria are met indicates a buy or sell when it reaches ~150 on the bullish or bearish side) has reached 275 on the bullish side, one of the highest values we have seen in recent history. As well, almost all of the other criteria for a buy signal have been met. We believe that the bottom will be reached within the next several days to a week or so. Those with larger portfolios should begin to average in (buy incrementally) now. That's all for now. We will update if there appear to be any significant changes in this market environment. 

Monday, November 13, 2000:  Fireworks!!! We talked a week ago about various areas of the market finally lining up for a decline, to be followed by a stronger upmove. Thursday was the first bullish day (signal-wise) in weeks, and Friday, we had an overall strength factor of 179 (bullish), which if we had more breadth in the market would have implied a buy signal for today. Again today, there are not enough signals to give us a buy signal, but the overall strength factor of 233 (bullish) is the strongest we've seen since May 22. Despite the strong bullishnes, we see just a little reason to worry, in that on Friday, several of the major high tech sectors, as well as the NASDAQ as a whole broke through major support to complete bearish patterns that imply as much as 10 or 15% more downside (on NASDAQ and particularly the computer sector). Semiconductors seem to have reached a stronger base, and their strength today throughout a 5% sellout in the broader tech markets appears to support that. As well, the strong buying that took place today to turn the markets around is a good sign of strong demand at the 2850 (nasdaq) level. We should be careful in advising that this may not necessarily be the absolute bottom, but again, we're close. We're still looking for something of a bottom relatively shortly, and we should be no more than 10% or so off, but we do not have that buy just yet.

Thursday, November 9, 2000:  Although we've got very, very few signals for today, this is the first time we've had more bullish than bearish signals in about two weeks. With the nasdaq having come down about 12% from Monday's high to today's low of 3087, just 2% higher than October's low, the volume and price action of today looked alot like the one day reversals in the tech industries on October 26, putting more weight behind the support levels between 3000 and 3100. We'll soon see where this goes, but technically we're still under a sell, although we don't see this market breaking through today's and October's lows anytime soon, so there should be relatively little downside left, at least in the short term.

Monday, November 6, 2000:  We've talked before about various sectors of the market trying to align themselves before making their definitive move to the upside. That appears to be happening finally, with the dow, s&p, and the nasdaq, as well as many of their constituent sectors, running into both upside resistance and their 50 day moving averages (from underneath). As such, we currently have sells on all three major indices (the nasdaq as of today), and still expect a decline in the market, followed (as previously stated) by a prolonged major upmove to higher highs than we've seen recently. We should state, however, that there is some chance that the markets will idle for a while and turn up without any significant downmove. While we do not consider this to be a likely scenario, the astute investor should always be aware of the possibilities.

Wednesday, November 01, 2000:  Not much to say today that hasn't already been said... We've actually got a sell on the market (i.e. 6 of 6 criteria for a sell signal) for tomorrow, but again, we're expecting to see this as a basing move after which we'll start a significant, prolonged uptrend. As a parallel, the most analogous situation we've seen to current conditions (in recent history) was around mid-May of this year. As far as non-tech industries are concerned, we've already got a sell on financials from close to a week ago, but we've got a follow-up sell here. It may not be too strong a sell, though.

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