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The good news is:
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed up 0.93% for the week
at a new all time high underperforming all of the other major indices.
Short Term
The market is overbought.
The indicator in the charts below attempts to force price action into a 45
day cycle. The indicator is constructed by putting a momentum indicator on
the result of subtracting a 22.5 day EMA from a 45 day EMA. The momentum indicator
accentuates the difference between the EMA's producing a result that is nearly
binary.
The chart covers the past year showing the NASDAQ composite (OTC) in magenta
and the indicator in green. Dashed vertical lines have been drawn on the first
trading day of each month. The dashed vertical line is red on the 1st trading
day of the year.
The indicator began rising about 2 ½ months ago and after a brief decline
at the end of September has resumed moving upward. It takes an unusually strong
movement in prices to hold this indicator up for this long.

The next chart shows most of 2004 and January 2005 when a somewhat similar
pattern developed at nearly the same time of the year. The run lasted about
4 ½ months and the OTC gained about 20%.

The next chart covers the period from April 1999 to April 2000.
The rise beginning in October and holding until early January has a pattern
similar to what we are seeing now.

The last chart runs from March 1998 to March 1999.
The OTC gained about 10% in the 4 months from early October to Early February.

The indicators arrested decline and sharp upward movement since early this
month suggests this run has further to go.
Intermediate term
Small capitalization issues lead both up and down.
The chart below shows several indices including the large cap DJIA and S&P
500 (SPX), the small cap Russell 2000 (R2K), mid cap S&P 400 (MID) and
the tech heavy OTC on semi log scales (Y axis only).
The chart covers the past 2 weeks and, although the DJIA has been getting
all the publicity, the small and mid cap indices have been taking the lead.

The chart below offers another way to look at the relative strength of the
secondaries to the blue chips. The chart covers the past 100 trading days showing
the OTC in red with an indicator that shows the relative strength of the R2K
to the SPX in black. When the indicator is moving upward the R2K is outperforming
the SPX.
Since early this month the secondaries have resumed upward leadership.

Seasonality
Next week is the week prior to options expiration in October during the 2nd
year of the Presidential Cycle.
The tables below show daily returns for the week prior to the 3rd Friday of
October during the 2nd year of the Presidential Cycle. OTC data covers the
period from 1966 - 2002 and SPX data from 1953 - 2002 during the 2nd year of
the Presidential Cycle. The market traded 6 days a week prior to 1953 so data
prior to 1953 has been omitted. There are summaries for both the 2nd year of
the Presidential Cycle and all years combined beginning with 1963 for the OTC
and 1953 for the SPX.
Although not as strong as last week, the coming week has had a strong positive
bias. The OTC has been up 70% of the time during the 2nd year of the Presidential
Cycle. The SPX has been up 62% of the time. Both indices have had average gains
and been up over half the time over all periods.
Report for the week before options expiration Friday during Oct
The number following the year is the position in the presidential cycle.
Daily returns from Monday through Friday.
| OTC Presidential Year 2 |
| Year |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thur |
Fri |
Totals |
| 1966-2 |
-0.02% |
0.77% |
1.80% |
-1.12% |
-0.21% |
1.22% |
| |
| 1970-2 |
-0.66% |
-0.85% |
-0.56% |
0.19% |
0.39% |
-1.50% |
| 1974-2 |
2.17% |
-0.53% |
-0.34% |
1.39% |
1.14% |
3.83% |
| 1978-2 |
-1.21% |
-2.22% |
-1.56% |
-1.32% |
-2.67% |
-8.98% |
| 1982-2 |
1.72% |
-0.07% |
1.49% |
-0.16% |
-0.19% |
2.79% |
| 1986-2 |
0.15% |
-0.08% |
0.53% |
0.20% |
-0.18% |
0.62% |
| Avg |
0.43% |
-0.75% |
-0.09% |
0.06% |
-0.30% |
-0.65% |
| |
| 1990-2 |
0.61% |
-1.24% |
0.41% |
2.22% |
1.00% |
2.99% |
| 1994-2 |
-0.17% |
-0.13% |
0.76% |
-0.31% |
-0.37% |
-0.22% |
| 1998-2 |
3.59% |
-2.37% |
2.11% |
4.52% |
0.62% |
8.47% |
| 2002-2 |
0.83% |
5.07% |
-3.90% |
3.24% |
1.22% |
6.46% |
| Avg |
1.22% |
0.33% |
-0.16% |
2.42% |
0.62% |
4.43% |
| |
| OTC summary for Presidential Year 2 1966 - 2002 |
| Avg |
0.70% |
-0.17% |
0.07% |
0.89% |
0.07% |
1.57% |
| Win% |
60% |
20% |
60% |
60% |
50% |
70% |
| |
| OTC summary for all years 1963 - 2005 |
| Avg |
0.21% |
0.02% |
-0.13% |
0.42% |
-0.13% |
0.39% |
| Win% |
62% |
53% |
48% |
65% |
56% |
53% |
| |
| SPX Presidential Year 2 |
| Year |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thur |
Fri |
Totals |
| 1954-2 |
-0.80% |
-0.40% |
-0.03% |
-1.21% |
-0.53% |
-2.97% |
| 1958-2 |
0.45% |
-0.70% |
-1.33% |
0.71% |
1.02% |
0.16% |
| 1962-2 |
0.56% |
-0.33% |
-0.33% |
-0.97% |
-1.33% |
-2.40% |
| 1966-2 |
1.14% |
1.56% |
-0.80% |
-0.27% |
0.45% |
2.08% |
| |
| 1970-2 |
-1.07% |
-0.13% |
0.15% |
0.55% |
-0.44% |
-0.94% |
| 1974-2 |
2.25% |
-1.79% |
-1.55% |
1.19% |
1.56% |
1.66% |
| 1978-2 |
-1.96% |
-1.32% |
-0.76% |
-1.15% |
-1.39% |
-6.58% |
| 1982-2 |
2.61% |
-0.02% |
1.69% |
-1.57% |
-0.74% |
1.97% |
| 1986-2 |
0.18% |
-0.23% |
1.46% |
0.31% |
-0.29% |
1.43% |
| Avg |
0.40% |
-0.70% |
0.20% |
-0.13% |
-0.26% |
-0.49% |
| |
| 1990-2 |
1.07% |
-1.42% |
-0.05% |
2.34% |
2.20% |
4.13% |
| 1994-2 |
-0.03% |
-0.28% |
0.56% |
-0.73% |
-0.42% |
-0.90% |
| 1998-2 |
1.36% |
-0.29% |
1.08% |
4.18% |
0.85% |
7.17% |
| 2002-2 |
0.73% |
4.73% |
-2.41% |
2.23% |
0.59% |
5.88% |
| Avg |
0.78% |
0.69% |
-0.21% |
2.00% |
0.81% |
4.07% |
| |
| SPX summary for Presidential Year 2 1954 - 2002 |
| Avg |
0.50% |
-0.05% |
-0.18% |
0.43% |
0.12% |
0.82% |
| Win% |
69% |
15% |
38% |
54% |
46% |
62% |
| |
| SPX summary for all years 1953 - 2005 |
| Avg |
0.29% |
-0.02% |
-0.18% |
0.20% |
-0.16% |
0.13% |
| Win% |
63% |
38% |
44% |
58% |
48% |
57% |
Conclusion
The market is still overbought and it appears to have gotten back into gear
with the seasonal pattern.
I expect the major indices to be higher on Friday October 20 than they were
on Friday October 13.
This report is free to anyone who wants it, so please tell your friends. They
can sign up at: http://alphaim.net/signup.html.
If it is not for you, reply with REMOVE in the subject line.
In my negative forecast last week I chose to ignore the extremely strong seasonal
bias because the market was overbought, that was a mistake.
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