COMMENT on "PIG": The PIGs now have their own Web page at http://www.assumption.edu/HTML/Faculty/Kantar/WPigs.html, where you can follow the progress of the portfolio on a daily basis.
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
Investors, whether bullish or bearish, had been wondering what the "trigger" would be to bring the party to an end. In hindsight, people pointed to inscrutable comments by Alan Greenspan, or to a bulge in the trade deficit, or to renewed weakness in the dollar, or to "repatriation" of dollars by the Japanese, but ultimately, what it all boiled down to was: There was no "trigger". The bubble popped simply because it had gotten too big to be supported by the amount of "new" cash pouring into stocks.
The first selloff came in late March, with the Dow off 925 points in three days. That brought the Dow down below its 39-week moving average, which the pundits proclaimed was the start of the long-awaited "10% correction". It wasn't. A sharp reversal over the next three weeks returned the Dow close to its previous peak, though most averages gained only three or four percent.
During the rest of April, the market and its averages mostly sulked, not really going anywhere while stocks soaked up the seasonal rush of new IRA money. However, by then it was clear that the NASDAQ was in a bear market, with most investors of "aggressive growth" mutual funds actually suffering a loss relative to the May 1996 peak. It might not show in the weighted averages, propped up as they were by Intel and Microsoft, but the average fund owner sure felt it in his or her portfolio.
In recent years May had been a "good" month for stocks, mostly because money managers were putting fresh IRA funds to work. But May of 1997 had reverted to the pattern of "ugly" Mays of earlier decades. The month saw a steady decline in nearly all stocks on very heavy volume.... typically 400 to 700 million shares per day... until by the close on Thursday, May 22, the Dow was at 6342.
The meltdown came on Friday, May 23. In spite of the circuit breakers, stocks fell 443 points in the first hour and a half, before the onslaught of sell orders caused regulators to pull the plug on the computers for the day. But that didn't help; the Dow was still off 1332 points for the day at its close, which was a half-hour early.
In less than a month's time, the stock market had erased more than $2.1 trillion of paper profits in stocks, more money than had been poured into mutual funds since 1990. Needless to say, the average lemming found his portfolios underwater... even though the Dow was still above 5000. All weekend long, the Internet, computerized and auto-mated telephone orders to "sell on Tuesday" (Mon-day being the observance of Memorial Day) piled up at the mutual fund firms. There was even time for people to put paper redemption forms in the snail mail, in the hope they would be processed by Wednesday.
I'd like to tell you the level at which the stock market opened on Tuesday May 26, but it didn't. In hopes of avoiding further carnage in the style of 1987, regulators kept it closed. But overseas trading in U.S. shares indicated that, if it had opened, the Dow would have been at about 3850.
The stock market remained closed on Wednesday, May 27. The crash had spread to foreign bourses; regulators closed most of them, too.
Mutual fund companies were really in a mess. They had all of these sell orders, but no way of executing them. By agreement with regulators, due to "severe liquidity problems" in the market, they arranged to keep transactions in their equity mutual funds suspended even after the stock market was reopened.
Trading resumed on Thursday, May 28. With mutual fund owners removed from the market, prices mostly seesawed based on selling by panicked pension and annuity fund managers, and buying by individuals who believed in "holding stocks for the long term" and "buying the dips". (Some dip!) The swings were violent, ranging between Dow 3050 and 4125, but at week's end the Dow closed at 3345, not too far above its "fair value" of 3250.
Meanwhile, the mutual fund companies worked diligently at sorting out their paperwork mess. First, they declined to add operators to take phone calls, and in some cases just unplugged some of their phone lines, in effect shrinking their communications pipeline to keep their workload manageable. (This did not make the people who couldn't get through very happy.)
Then, they set to work "pairing" orders. A panicked lemming who had submitted an automated "sell" order followed by a "buy" order in an equity/money-market fund pair could simply be given a statement showing a paper transaction at the market's close on the day the suspension was lifted. Then, trades cashing out of an equity fund could be matched up against purchases of that fund by "bottom-fishers", allowing computerized entries for different individuals without any trading actually having to take place.
By the end of the week, when the computers at the fund companies had finished their matching, there was still an overhang of $600 billion (current market value) of stocks that had to be sold to meet redemptions (including switches into money-market funds).
The companies resolved to defuse the problem by reopening their funds one at a time, as they achieved some semblance of equilibrium. For owners requesting liquidation, if the fund provided for it they were sent "redemption in kind", that is, shares of stock of some of the companies owned by the fund. This was by nature a very slow process, as it required obtaining paper certificates from the com-panies, then distributing them.
But for tax-deferred accounts, a mutual-fund company was frequently also the trustee of the tax-deferred accounts, and "redemption in kind" made no sense except as a delaying tactic, for the trustee would have to sell the shares to carry out the wishes of the account owner.
Thus, all during June of 1997, the stock market sank lower and lower as the $600 billion overhang of shares was sold, either by trustee-owners of reopening funds or by individuals who had received this rapidly-depreciating paper in lieu of the expected check. Stocks finally bottomed in early July at Dow 2358.
Then came the phenomenal rally. The usual suspect was the Federal Reserve, which naturally would be expected to provide liquidity to prevent the stock market's woes from spreading to the banking system; but actually, the Federal Reserve didn't have to do anything. The enormous shift of resources from stocks to money-market funds had caused a "shortage" of short-term, interest bearing paper, resulting in stocks being undervalued in terms of competing yields. By the end of July, short-term yields had dropped under 3%, the Dow was back up to 4011, and it looked, as in 1987, as if the market were back on the road to recovery and (maybe someday soon) new highs.
This all changed in the first week of August, when the all-but-forgotten Kenneth Starr finally dropped his bombshells. Hillary Clinton was indicted for obstruction of justice in the "Travelgate" affair and for Whitewater fraud, and Bill Clinton and several ex-White House staffers were named as unindicted co-conspirators for similar crimes. Furthermore, Starr said, there was sufficient evidence to contradict previous conclusions about Vince Foster's "suicide", and that Foster's body should be exhumed and re-autopsied as part of a new and more vigorous investigation. (Scratch up one for the "conspiracy nuts".) Four days later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Bill Clinton is not a monarch, and that Paula Jones' case against him could proceed. The market tanked again.
October 1997:
The experts were puzzled. In the wake of the market meltdown and the ugly turn in political events, consumer confidence had plummeted, yet consumer debt had been rising for the past three months. This seemed to contradict the "experts" who were saying that all signs pointed to a deepening recession. Even unemployment, generally a lagging indicator, was now on the rise.... but surely, if consumers were stepping up their borrowing, the recession, if it did occur, would be short-lived. Retailers anticipated a good holiday shopping season ahead.
Short-term interest rates had rebounded back over 5%, and along with increased consumer borrowing plus the reverberations from a few "dislocations" in the bond markets caused by defaults on derivatives (reminding people, in case they'd forgotten, that "junk" bonds are aptly named), long-term interest rates had crept up to about 7-1/2%. This helped keeps stocks depressed (relatively speaking), as they traded in a range of 3200 to 3600.
January 1998
The holiday selling season had been a disaster. Sales were actually lower than in 1996, even before adjust-ing for inflation. Whatever the bulge in consumer borrowing was for, it apparently wasn't for gifts. Layoffs in the retail and financial industries, which were already heavy even before the shopping season had ended, had now spread to the manufacturing sector.... particularly in computers and electronics.
Missing from the stock market this January was the usual end-of-year influx of fresh cash into mutual-fund-based retirement funds. In fact, the little bit of "buying the dips" that had occurred last fall had completely dried up, and mutual funds were now suffering net redemptions. Apparently the public was expressing its disapproval at the loss of liquidity in the prior year's market meltdown, and showing its disappointment that the stock market had not bounced back as it did in 1987.
Financial advisors were reporting more liquidations of retirement accounts, especially IRAs, than of new accounts being opened. Of course, the tax penalties for prematurely cashing in IRAs and similar plans are heavy (if you're under age 59-1/2).... capital gains taxed as ordinary income (generally at a 15% or 28% rate), plus a 10% surcharge on the amount withdrawn. Apparently the latecomers to the stock market, people who had opened their plans since 1990 or 1991 and who showed only capital losses, were perfectly content to pay the government its 10% tithe just to get out of those damn plans. The stock market (after the usual turn-of-the-year rally) headed south again.... below 3000.
March 1998
It was pretty clear that the U.S. was in a sharp recession, with no end in sight. Unemployment... at least, by official figures.... had risen to 8-3/4%, with many people suspecting that the real rate could be almost double that if you counted the people who had given up looking and the PhDs who were flipping burgers.
The biggest surprise to economists was the sharp rise in the rate of bankruptcies, especially personal bankruptcies, which had quintupled since the fall. At the current rate, more than 17 million families would be in bankruptcy court by the end of the year. It was beginning to look as if, last fall, a lot of people knew they were "going to hit the wall" and ran up credit-card debt (which a bankruptcy can cancel) for necessities in anticipation of declaring themselves bankrupt. The banks, generally being dim-witted and the last to pick up on a new trend, had responded to the borrowing bulge by mailing out even more credit cards and raising borrowing limits.... much to their eventual sorrow.
The increasing number of credit defaults, and the downgraded credit ratings of state and local governments in the face of softening tax revenues, had put upward pressure on both short-and long-term interest rates. The federal government remained an excellent credit risk, though maybe some foreigners had doubts.... the yield on the "long bond" had crept up to 8-1/8%, while foreign buying of Treasury securities had tapered off to about a third of what it was a year prior.
Dwindling corporate earnings and profits, and pressure from the competition.... bonds and money-market funds.... kept the bear market in stocks in force. The Dow closed out March at 2642.
Overseas, Israel launched a major offensive in Lebanon to try to stamp out Hizb'Allah after its wave of terrorist attacks, and there was some apprehension in official circles that Syria would enter the fray. But in Russia, there was renewed optimism after Aleksandr Lebed won the special election for the presidency following the death in December of Boris Yeltsin. Maybe, Russians hoped, Lebed would be able to break the control the mafias had over the economy and improve the lot of ordinary people.
April 1998
Star of the month was Hillary Clinton, resplendent and very fashionable in a new outfit and hairdo at the opening of her trial for defrauding the taxpayers in the "Flowerwood Farms" land scam. Though media coverage was extensive and flattering, it soon became apparent to even the most inattentive observer that the special prosecutor had a pretty good case. It was not a question of whether Hillary was guilty or innocent, for she was guilty as hell; but only if her highly-paid lawyers would be able to beat the rap. Fortunately for the Clintons, Bill's lawyers had been able to drag out the "discovery" phase in the Paula Jones lawsuit, and that case was unlikely to go to trial before the fall.
May 1998
This was the month that the economy fell off a cliff. Nobody was sure exactly why. Perhaps it was the public's increasing disillusionment with all forms of government; not only were the media finally giving the various Clinton scandals decent exposure, but a "spinoff" was the media limelight focused on the crimes of lesser politicians and government officials, primarily at the state level. Also, Congress had opened its hearings on the stock market meltdown of a year ago, in search of the reasons why it was allowed to happen, and who was at fault. For sure, it was not peoples' own cupidity that had led them into the bubble and collapse... no, they were above reproach; somebody else must have made them do it. Those evil touts, with their 20-year charts of a stock market which only goes up; those mutual-fund companies, with their unfulfilled promises of instant redemption... it must have been their fault. They should be punished for their misdeeds.
At any rate, wave after wave of layoffs hit both manufacturing and services, as companies quickly scrambled to maintain profit margins in the face of sharply declining sales. Especially hard hit were any areas where purchases could be put off for awhile, such as new cars and appliances, big-screen TVs and other consumer electronics, personal computers and new software. It was obvious: People thrown out of work don't buy more than the minimum they need to survive.
Personal bankruptcies soared. So many people... estimates were, maybe a third of the families in the country.... had filed for bankruptcy that the courts were hopelessly clogged, with a 2-1/2 year backlog of cases (on average) nationwide. People had figured out how to beat the system; in theory, when you filed for bankruptcy your assets were frozen until the court sorted out your status. In practice, a bankruptcy kept your creditors at bay while you continued to maintain your lifestyle until the day of reckoning, whenever that might come, and with the hope that you might be able to hang onto your house through it all.
As you might have surmised, Bill Clinton's popularity.... not ever high to begin with.... had plummeted. People will tolerate a charlatan in high office as long as their own lives are going well, but when times get rough, the man at the top gets the blame. Bill himself was in a pickle; it sure looked like Hillary would be convicted, and in better times he might have been able to get away with pardoning her. But if he pardoned her now, he'd almost certainly be impeached; a bill of impeachment had already been filed by House Republicans.
June 1998
As the economy continued its downward spiral, government tax revenues were adversely affected. The federal government, in particular, was now supporting state unemployment compensation systems, which would have gone bankrupt in the spring without the additional cash.... even while payroll and income tax receipts were sharply lower. The so-called Social Security "surplus" of $60 billion per year disappeared entirely; Social Security was still solvent on a pay-as-you-go basis, but nothing was being added to the "trust" funds. Monthly budget deficits were $45-$47 billion (more than $500 billion per year) and growing.
Interest rates remained stubbornly high, not because borrowing demand (other than government) was strong, but because investors had become more sensitized to the risks of debt in a declining economy. In the previous two decades, all kinds of debt had become "securitized"; not only home mortgages.... banks no longer held mortgages they wrote, they sold them and merely serviced the loans.... but also auto loans, credit card debt, even college loans and lines of credit. As people defaulted on their debt, particularly unsecured debt, in an effort to make ends meet (or as they entered bankruptcy), the market values of the "securitized" debts plunged and their yields soared, providing stiff competition for the waves of Treasury debt hitting the marketplace. Thirty-year U.S. bonds were nudging 9%, and the stock market was still in a deep funk, trading at 2100-2450.
In response to peoples' cries to "do something", Bill Clinton was on the TV news every night with soothing words about how the government had the situation under control, that this or that new program he was proposing tonight would turn things around, that the economy was basically sound, and he really felt our pain, but the pain would end soon and a bright future for America was just around the corner. But it was obvious to everybody that the government was not in control of the situation, and neither Bill Clinton nor any other politician in government had the slightest idea how to right things.... especially when there was no money to launch any of Bill's grandiose schemes.
July 1998
Middle-class Americans, accustomed for many years to getting a good education, working hard, providing for their kids, and paying their taxes and meeting other obligations, had gotten completely out of touch with how the "underclass" survived in the ghettoes and poor neighborhoods of our cities: A combination of welfare money (with its retinue of leeches in the poverty industry) and an active, tax-free underground economy, a large chunk of which was devoted to the distribution of illegal drugs.
They were rudely awakened in the summer. If you thought the middle class suffered in the recession, well, the poor, it was like they dropped off the edge of the earth. Congress had sharply cut back on welfare transfer payments to the states in the spring, preferring to fund unemployment programs and "workfare" for the newly-unemployed instead, and the states simply didn't have the means to pick up the difference. Also, the newly-unemployed members of the former middle class were now competing with the poor for black-market jobs, especially those available outside the inner cities; so the poor's job opportunities were pretty much confined to the econ-omy of the already-impoverished ghetto areas.... which is to say, there were nearly none.
Abuse of drugs waxes and wanes with the affluence of society; as life became harder for members of the middle class, fewer of them could afford the luxury of partaking of illegal drugs, and their prices on the black market dropped precipitously. This was maybe a help to those in the drug trade who had gotten hooked themselves, but otherwise it was a disaster for the inner-city poor and the interconnected network of suburban drug dealers. No more yuppie brokers sniffing lines of coke at weekend parties.... the yuppies were now standing in unemployment lines, and the weekend parties had been replaced by self-help group therapy sessions. The last remaining source of cash feeding into the economies of the inner cities had dwindled away.... well, almost the last.... prostitution still flourished, though at cut-rate prices.
Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson and other black leaders had put aside their differences to join together in organizing a "Poor People's March" (meaning, "poor black people") on Washington to protest the welfare cutbacks and to publicize the extreme poverty and homelessness into which poor people had des-cended. More then two million mostly-black Ameri-cans descended on D.C. on a beastly-hot Fourth of July for speeches and rallies on the Mall, followed by a march to the Capitol. "Food now!" "Jobs now!", the chant rose up before the steps of the houses of Congress.
When Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott made a (heavily-guarded) joint appearance before the crowd, they were roundly booed, and they beat a hasty retreat without being able to say a single word. The chant started up again.... "Food now!" "Jobs now!".... as the crowd surged around the Capitol, overwhelming the security force.
"Thank you for coming! Thank you for coming! Take the word home with you!" Jesse Jackson shouted into the microphone, indicating the rally was over, but he could barely be heard above the din. More than half of the crowd did indeed begin to disperse.... disappearing into the Metro or into Union Station for the trip home to the cities from where they came.... but not the rest. With people now carrying kerosene torches to illuminate the assemblage against the onrushing darkness, the crowd's chant continued.... "Food now! Jobs now!".... as it surged away from the Capitol, past Union Station, and into the inner city immediately to the north and east.
"Food now!" "Jobs now!", the cry echoed.... viewed by millions across the country on TV as cameras followed the unruly mob surging into the streets of D.C. "Food now!" "Jobs now!" became the battle cry as poor people all over the country, stirred by the events taking place in Washington, congregated on the streets to escape their stifling-hot apartments and to vent their frustration. "Food now!" "Jobs now!", the chant continued, as in city after city, people surged through the streets, disrupting traffic, setting fire to cars, then finally resorting to the smashing of storefronts and unrestrained looting.
At dawn, when the rioting finally had subsided, large stretches of the inner cities of 36 major metropolitan areas lay smoldering.... and smaller sections of dozens of others were heavily damaged. Black (and other minority) leaders might have been able diffuse or avert some of this rioting if they'd been home.... but most were on the way back from the march in D.C. It was the worst urban rioting since 1968; for the majority of Americans, it was the worst they'd ever seen, because thay were born after 1968 or were too young back then to remember it.
Bill Clinton, on one of those rare occasions where he both looked and acted presidential, in a long and impassioned speech about true American values called out the National Guard to restore order to the cities. Indeed, order was restored; but the continued presence of the Guard was required to maintain it. Many of the vignettes captured by the media, such as the video of Guard troops keeping beggars at bay while financiers entered their Wall Street offices, only seemed to amplify the increasing gap between the haves and have-nots .
Perhaps the hardest hit by the strife, discord and economic hardships was the black middle class, especially those blacks who, through herculean effort and against great odds, had clawed their way out of the ghetto to "make it" in the white world. When times are good and jobs are plentiful, people can be magnanimous and will stifle their suspicions; but when competition for jobs is fierce, latent bigotry will often surface in the tense atmosphere. Whites, observing their nonwhite co-workers, might have thought, I wonder if X sympathizes with those scum rioters in Washington?; and blacks might have thought, What's the matter, man? You think I don't want to play by the same rules you do to get the good things in life?, while fearing that the system would increasingly work against them.
(To be continued next issue.)
10 Best Investing Tips
Stocks, Bonds and Mutual FundsMoney can't buy you happiness or health, but it can buy you a red Porsche, a winter home in the Florida Keys or a ski condo at Whistler. Solid investments can also secure a wealthy retirement and fund your children's education. However, you won't see any of this if your money earns a meager 4% a year in a CD or savings account. Real wealth is made, kept and preserved in the stock and bond market, and you don't need a large sum of money to get started. In this workshop, you'll learn the fine art of picking stocks: why it's not enough to pick good companies, the importance of Wall Street perceptions and what it takes to make money in the stock market.
The nice thing about stuff like this is that I don't have to really make any comments on it. Fifteen years ago when the bull market began, everyone was in love with CDs when they earned 15% and hated stocks which were at the same levels they were in the mid 1960s. We have now come full circle -- "cash is now trash" and stocks are now used to get everyone a red Porsche.
- Marc Sexton (Fiend SuperBear)
Looking at the two prior major crashes, 1929 and 1987, in both cases it was about six or seven weeks from market peak (in the weighted blue-chip averages) to the biggest crash day. In both crashes, and in Japan in 1990, the steepest points in the selloffs did not arrive until stocks were 10% to 12% below their bull-market peaks.... after a slow process of erosion during the in-between period.
In the last major "once-in-a-generation" market top in 1968-69, most stocks peaked in the late spring or summer of 1968, while the big-cap stuff didn't top out until the spring of 1969, an eight- to ten-month lag. Before the 1987 Crash, most stocks peaked in the spring, while the Dow topped out in late August, about a five-month lag. Way back in 1929, the Dow peaked in early September while the broad market topped out in the spring, about a six-month lag.
If we take the unweighted NASDAQ averages, such as the Russell 2000, as typical of the performance of most stocks, and proceed with the assumption that the end of May 1996 was the bull-market peak for these, then based on previous patterns it is unlikely that the bull-market peak in the blue chips will come later than March 1997, and it could very well have arrived with the peak reached this month. That would place the meltdown arriving probably no earlier than March an no later than May.
If you presume that stocks made a "double top" in May 1996 and January 1997, then this cycle could extend into the fall, with the meltdown arriving in October or November; but I think this is a much less likely scenario.
The stock market's past behavior is no gauarantee the future will unfold the same way; but I see so many similarities in the concentration of buying in a few big-cap "glamour" stocks between prior peaks (RCA in 1929, Control Data and Xerox in 1968) and today (Intel, Microsoft, IBM) that, playing the odds, I would say that those of you waiting for this house of cards to collapse won't have to wait very much longer.
A. "Phoenix" -real portfolio, begun on October 1, 1995.
Original cost: $ 8,090.45
Present value: $ 7,352.32
Increase: $ -738.13 [-9.13%]
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 +3.05%, for a compound annual rate of return of 0.30%.
B. "Professors' Investment Group (PIG)" - investment club portfolio.
COMMENT on "PIG": The PIGs now have their own Web page at
http://www.assumption.edu/HTML/Faculty/Kantar/WPigs.html, where you can follow the progress of the portfolio on a daily basis.
C. Fidelity IRA - real portfolio, includes commissions:
SUMMARY - IRA:
Original (1983-86) cost: $ 8,326.19
Present value: $17,435.69
Increase: $ 9,109.50 [109.41%]
The performance of this portfolio (including its predecessors) from January 1, 1987 to the present is +58.98%, for a compound annual rate of return of 4.70%.
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, 28Jan97: stock, 111.42; MM, 16.56
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" : The signal remains bullish, though the more sensitive 10% exponential gave a one-day sell signal on the 27th. In other words, we are close to a sell signal; a few more down days would do the trick.
{, } = "Timer's Trend" (4% and 10% exponential) SELL ({) or BUY (}) signal
=============================TIMER'S TREND===========================
Wed 2 Oct 96 . | . # | 5933.97 | . + *
Wed 2 Oct 96 . | . # | 5933.97 |~.~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Thu 3 Oct 96 . | .# | 5932.85 | . + *
Fri 4 Oct 96 . | . # | 5992.86 |~.~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Mon 7 Oct 96 . | . # | 5979.81 | . + *
Tue 8 Oct 96 . | # | 5966.77 | . + *
Wed 9 Oct 96 . |# . | 5930.62 | . + *
Thu 10 Oct 96 . | #. | 5921.67 | .+ *
Fri 11 Oct 96 . | . # | 5969.38 | .+ *
Mon 14 Oct 96 . | . # | 6010.00 | .+ *
Tue 15 Oct 96 . | # | 6004.78 | .+ *
Wed 16 Oct 96 . | # | 6020.81 | .+ *
Thu 17 Oct 96 . | . # | 6059.20 |~.~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Fri 18 Oct 96 . | . # | 6094.23 | . + *
Mon 21 Oct 96 . | # | 6090.87 | .+ *
Tue 22 Oct 96 . |# . | 6061.80 | .+ *
Wed 23 Oct 96 . |# . | 6036.46 | .+ *
Thu 24 Oct 96 . I# . | 5992.48 | + *
Fri 25 Oct 96 . I #. | 6007.02 |+. *
Mon 28 Oct 96 . I# . | 5972.73 |+. *
Tue 29 Oct 96 . I # | 6007.02 |+. *
Wed 30 Oct 96 . I #. | 5993.23 |+. *
Thu 31 Oct 96 . | # | 6029.38 | + *
Fri 1 Nov 96 . | # | 6021.93 | + *
Mon 4 Nov 96 . | # | 6041.68 | + *
Tue 5 Nov 96 . | . # | 6081.18 | .+ *
Wed 6 Nov 96 . | . # | 6177.71 |~.~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Thu 7 Nov 96 . | . # | 6206.04 | . + *
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 | . + *
Thu 2 Jan 97 . |# . | 6442.49 | .+ *
Fri 3 Jan 97 . | . # | 6544.09 | .+ *
Mon 6 Jan 97 . | # | 6567.18 | .+ *
Tue 7 Jan 97 . | . # | 6600.66 |~.+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Wed 8 Jan 97 . | # | 6549.48 | .+ *
Thu 9 Jan 97 . | . # | 6625.67 | . + *
Fri 10 Jan 97 . | . # | 6703.79 |~.~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Mon 13 Jan 97 . | .# | 6709.18 | . + *
Tue 14 Jan 97 . | . # | 6762.29 |~.~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Wed 15 Jan 97 . | .# | 6726.88 | . + *
Thu 16 Jan 97 . | . # | 6765.37 | . + *
Fri 17 Jan 97 . | . # | 6833.10 |~.~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Mon 20 Jan 97 . | . # | 6843.87 | . + *
Tue 21 Jan 97 . | . # | 6883.90 |~.~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Wed 22 Jan 97 . | .# | 6850.03 | . + *
Thu 23 Jan 97 . | .# | 6755.75 |~.~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fri 25 Jan 97 . # . | 6696.48 |~.+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mon 27 Jan 97 . I# . | 6660.69 |*+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tue 28 Jan 97 . | .# | 6656.08 | + *
=====================================================================
[, ] = 4% exponential change unconfirmed by 10% exponential (not a signal).
@ = market overbought or oversold. I or & (on baseline) = 10% exponential SELL.