Monday, September 25, 2000:  Before we get started, a quick reminder: If we are under a (market) buy or a sell, that signal is in force until a signal to the contrary is triggered. We are still under a sell on technology from 9/1, though we are under a buy on the dow. As of today, we still do not have enough to get a buy on the overall (particularly tech) market. Nor do we have enough to reverse any of the signals that we have had on individual industry sectors (we were under a buy on biotech, and a sell on oil services and financials). We do, however, have signals developing in several areas (see industry calls). Additionally, while we're not equipped to issue across the board market calls on international markets in general, we have bullish signals on absolutely every international market tracking stock we cover, and these markets are on average about 15% off their highs. Now seems a pretty good time to step up investments in international funds, particularly until we get buys on other individual sectors of the US markets.

Thursday, September 21, 2000:  Still not a whole lot new happening. Obviously, with the strength of the recent market losses, people are out there looking for buying opportunities. We're getting closer, but we haven't gotten there yet, in part because we haven't had a significant enough volume of bullish signals, and in part because most of the buy signals that we do have are not strong enough.  The dow is virtually unchanged since a buy executed mid-day yesterday. With regard to the buys, we keep in mind that as a general rule, you don't want to trade against the trend, and the trend, as of the September 1st strong sell on technology (strongest in several months), is down. To the extent that we can buy rising stocks in a rising sector, with the overall market rising, that is the kind of alignment we like to see. The dow (and other "old economy" sectors, such as oil services or financials) should, however, have less of a problem moving up against a declining nasdaq. When we do get a buy on technology, buys on individual industries can then be prioritized and executed with RECKLESS ABANDON!!! Just kidding, but they can be executed with much less of a risk of a moderate industry move being dragged down by a bearish move in the overall market.  As an aside, enough downward momentum has been built up among some of the larger tech stocks to put additional selling pressure on the tech sector starting sometime in the next couple of days. This could conceivably delay a buy on the overall market, although today's bottoming and rebound on strong volume suggest that the stronger technology stocks may hold up.

Tuesday, September 19, 2000:  We're getting a buy execute on the dow for tomorrow. No overall buy on the market yet.

Tuesday, September 12, 2000:  Whoa!!! If I'm reading this right, then today was a pretty big day as far as new signals go. Overall, today we had a pretty strong volume of signals (about half bullish and half bearish), and the overall strength indicator was basically flat (10 to the bearish side--~150 necessary for a buy or sell on the market). However, industry by industry, we've got quite a bit going on. I'm a little new at this, and I'm still developing criteria for buys and sells by industry, but if I'm reading this right, this is what we've got. [Usually, the following would be in the industry calls section only, but there's enough going on today that this paints a better overall market picture.]

Biotech: It looks like we have a weak buy coming on the biotech sector. Bullish signal on bbh (biotech holder) and 5 bullish signals of varying strength today on individual stocks, including a 0-level on glgc. Typically, we need over half the stocks in an industry to go bullish on the same day in order to signal a buy signal on the industry (we would need 6 or 7 for biotech), so it may take a few days before this triggers, and the biotech index is still officially under a LAST STAGE SELL, so any upmove is not expected to be extremely strong.

Financials: We appear to have a sell coming on financials. This sector as a whole has run up fairly consistently by about 50% (individual stocks are up from 25% to 65% from their recent lows) since early March, and has triggered a last stage sell. This is probably either the top or near the top of the most recent major bull phase in financials, and we may expect somewhat prolonged or deeper declines within the industry.

Oil Services: Sell. This is a little easier to call. Of the 14 oil services stocks we track, 10 of them triggered (8 strong) bearish today. Only one executable, though. We also got a weak sell on an overall index for energy stocks. This sell could trigger in anywhere from one day to two weeks. As most of these stocks have undergone fairly extensive rises in recent months, we would recommend selling on any weakness.

Semiconductors: A number of bullish signals again today (9 of 18 in last 2 days). This industry has been particularly difficult to read over the last 2 months, but this still looks as though the sector is looking for a moderate buy. Not yet, though.

Wireless: Most of the rest of the wireless equipment and superconductor stocks triggered today (very bullish yesterday, see msg from 9/11), and it looks like sooner may be better than later for getting into this sector.

Monday, September 11, 2000:  About two-thirds of our signals are bullish now, but they're so weak compared to the bearish signals that the overall signal strength indicator is almost flat (+1 bullish, actually).

Wednesday, September 6 - Thursday, September 7, 2000:  Not a whole lot going on lately. Today was the first day in a few weeks in which signals were more bullish than bearish. Only real developments are that international indices are getting much more bullish (particularly in Asia - +5 strength on japan, bullish on Malaysia, Singapore, Asian Tiger Fund, etc.), and that there may be a buy developing on semiconductors, but we shall soon see.

Friday, September 1, 2000:  Lot of signals today, about 80% bearish. Of the 5 or 6 criteria we have for a sell on the market, all were strong save one (didn't quite meet criteria for ratio of bearish to bullish signals). However, of all signals throwing off that ratio, only 3 were in technology sectors, and the overall strength factor on our proprietary index was 188, the strongest of any buy or sell since early June. This seems to suggest a sell on the NASDAQ and other tech-heavy indices for Tuesday, 9/5, particularly in the biotech and computer sectors (biotech from 8/31, computer sector from 9/1). These, by the way, were accompanied by last stage sells on both the S&P 500 and the S&P mid-cap 400.

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