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The good news is:
• Seasonally the first 4 trading days of July during the 3rd year of the
Presidential Cycle have been one of the strongest weeks of the year. Since
1931 the S&P 500 (SPX) has been up 89% of the time with an average gain
of over 1.5%.
Short Term
The short term indicators bounced off their lows last week and are mostly
in neutral territory right now. Seasonal tendencies of early July especially
during the 3rd year of the Presidential Cycle are likely to predominate.
Intermediate term
Downside volume, that is the volume of issues declining in price, follows
a consistent pattern through a bottom to bottom price cycle.
At a price bottom everyone inclined to sell has done so and downside volume
dries up. After a few months downside volume begins building and finally spikes
as prices hit another cycle low.
The chart below covers the past 2 years with dashed vertical lines drawn on
the first trading day of the year. The NASDAQ composite (OTC) is shown in orange
and a 5% trend (39 day EMA) of NASDAQ downside volume (OTC DV) is shown in
brown. OTC DV has been plotted on an inverted Y axis so increasing OTC DV moves
the indicator downward (up is good).
For this purpose the indicator is imprecise, but, you can see that it has
been in a downtrend since last September and it is near the level where previous
market breaks have occurred.

The next chart is similar to the one above except is shows a 5% trend of NASDAQ
upside volume (OTC UV) plotted on a conventional Y axis in green.
Price breaks don't happen until the buyers give up and OTC UV declines. There
has been a little deterioration in this indicator recently, but, there has
been enough buying to hold prices up while OTC DV has been increasing.

Seasonality
Next week includes first 4 trading days of July during the 3rd year of the
Presidential Cycle.
The tables show the daily returns for the first 4 trading days of July during
the 3rd year of the Presidential Cycle. NASDAQ data covers the period from
1963 - 2003 and SPX data from 1931 - 2003. There are summaries for both the
3rd year of the Presidential Cycle and all years combined. The SPX summary
for all years combined begins with 1928.
During the 3rd year of the Presidential Cycle the SPX has been up 89% of the
time and had an average gain of 1.57% making it one of the strongest weeks
of the entire 4 year Presidential Cycle. The NASDAQ hasn't been too shabby
either up 73% of the time with an average gain of 1.19%.
Over all years the SPX has been up 71% of the time with an average return
of 0.90% while the OTC has been up 57% of the time with a very modestly negative
average return of -0.01%. The OTC had two very bad years in 2001 (down 7.4%)
and 2004 (down 4%) pushing its average return down.
First 4 days of July.
The number following the year represents its position in the presidential cycle.
The number following the daily return represents the day of the week;
1 = Monday, 2 = Tuesday etc.
| OTC Presidential Year 3 |
| Year |
Day1 |
Day2 |
Day3 |
Day4 |
Totals |
| 1963-3 |
-0.12% 1 |
-0.30% 2 |
0.30% 3 |
0.30% 5 |
0.18% |
| |
| 1967-3 |
0.49% 1 |
-0.10% 3 |
0.17% 4 |
-0.01% 5 |
0.55% |
| 1971-3 |
0.62% 4 |
0.28% 5 |
0.42% 2 |
0.71% 3 |
2.04% |
| 1975-3 |
-0.79% 2 |
-0.80% 3 |
0.65% 4 |
-0.70% 1 |
-1.63% |
| 1979-3 |
-0.83% 1 |
0.04% 2 |
0.55% 4 |
0.62% 5 |
0.38% |
| 1983-3 |
0.90% 5 |
-1.38% 2 |
0.63% 3 |
-0.04% 4 |
0.11% |
| Avg |
0.08% |
-0.39% |
0.49% |
0.12% |
0.29% |
| |
| 1987-3 |
-0.05% 3 |
0.33% 4 |
-0.18% 1 |
-0.13% 2 |
-0.03% |
| 1991-3 |
1.13% 1 |
-0.53% 2 |
-0.93% 3 |
-0.06% 5 |
-0.38% |
| 1995-3 |
0.12% 1 |
0.78% 3 |
1.18% 4 |
1.77% 5 |
3.84% |
| 1999-3 |
0.77% 4 |
1.29% 5 |
-0.15% 2 |
0.23% 3 |
2.13% |
| 2003-3 |
1.07% 2 |
2.35% 3 |
-0.91% 4 |
3.44% 1 |
5.95% |
| Avg |
0.61% |
0.85% |
-0.20% |
1.05% |
2.30% |
| |
| OTC summary for Presidential Year 3 1963 - 2003 |
| Averages |
0.30% |
0.18% |
0.16% |
0.56% |
1.19% |
| % Winners |
64% |
55% |
64% |
55% |
73% |
| MDD 7/7/1975 1.63% -- 7/5/1991 1.51% -- 7/5/1983 1.38% |
| |
| OTC summary for all years 1963 - 2006 |
| Averages |
0.02% |
-0.16% |
0.02% |
0.12% |
-0.01% |
| % Winners |
57% |
52% |
48% |
52% |
57% |
| MDD 7/6/2001 7.24% -- 7/2/2002 7.20% -- 7/7/1970 4.16% |
| |
| SPX Presidential Year 3 |
| Year |
Day1 |
Day2 |
Day3 |
Day4 |
Totals |
| 1931-3 |
1.62% 3 |
-0.86% 4 |
2.14% 5 |
-1.05% 1 |
1.85% |
| 1935-3 |
0.49% 1 |
0.10% 2 |
0.58% 3 |
1.16% 5 |
2.33% |
| 1939-3 |
1.01% 6 |
0.27% 1 |
1.82% 3 |
-0.09% 4 |
3.02% |
| 1943-3 |
0.08% 4 |
-0.08% 5 |
0.16% 6 |
0.00% 2 |
0.16% |
| |
| 1947-3 |
1.64% 2 |
-0.13% 3 |
1.04% 4 |
0.06% 1 |
2.61% |
| 1951-3 |
0.67% 1 |
0.62% 2 |
1.93% 4 |
0.00% 5 |
3.22% |
| 1955-3 |
0.39% 5 |
1.21% 2 |
3.57% 3 |
-1.39% 4 |
3.79% |
| 1959-3 |
0.86% 3 |
0.53% 4 |
0.62% 1 |
0.60% 2 |
2.61% |
| 1963-3 |
-0.74% 1 |
0.87% 2 |
0.69% 3 |
0.40% 5 |
1.23% |
| Avg |
0.56% |
0.62% |
1.57% |
-0.06% |
2.69% |
| |
| 1967-3 |
0.30% 1 |
0.49% 3 |
-0.04% 4 |
0.41% 5 |
1.15% |
| 1971-3 |
0.08% 4 |
0.00% 5 |
-0.02% 2 |
0.28% 3 |
0.34% |
| 1975-3 |
-0.36% 2 |
-0.71% 3 |
0.19% 4 |
-0.87% 1 |
-1.74% |
| 1979-3 |
-0.89% 1 |
0.10% 2 |
0.33% 4 |
1.16% 5 |
0.70% |
| 1983-3 |
0.48% 5 |
-1.37% 2 |
1.13% 3 |
-0.55% 4 |
-0.31% |
| Avg |
-0.08% |
-0.30% |
0.32% |
0.09% |
0.03% |
| |
| 1987-3 |
-0.35% 3 |
0.89% 4 |
-0.23% 1 |
0.81% 2 |
1.12% |
| 1991-3 |
1.82% 1 |
-0.12% 2 |
-1.10% 3 |
0.20% 5 |
0.81% |
| 1995-3 |
0.43% 1 |
0.03% 3 |
1.23% 4 |
0.43% 5 |
2.12% |
| 1999-3 |
0.60% 4 |
0.74% 5 |
-0.22% 2 |
0.56% 3 |
1.68% |
| 2003-3 |
0.80% 2 |
1.16% 3 |
-0.81% 4 |
1.90% 1 |
3.06% |
| Avg |
0.66% |
0.54% |
-0.23% |
0.78% |
1.76% |
| |
| SPX summary for Presidential Year 3 1931 - 2003 |
| Averages |
0.47% |
0.20% |
0.69% |
0.21% |
1.57% |
| % Winners |
79% |
63% |
68% |
63% |
89% |
| MDD 7/7/1975 1.73% -- 7/7/1955 1.39% -- 7/5/1983 1.37% |
| |
| SPX summary for all years 1928 - 2006 |
| Averages |
0.30% |
0.25% |
0.33% |
0.04% |
0.90% |
| % Winners |
69% |
61% |
59% |
58% |
71% |
| MDD 7/2/2002 4.30% -- 7/6/2001 3.73% -- 7/7/1986 3.42% |
July
The OTC has been up in July 50% of the time with an average loss of 0.2%,
however, during the 3rd year of the Presidential Cycle it has been up 64% of
the time with an average gain of 1.1%
The average month has 21 trading days. The charts below are constructed by
averaging the daily return of the first 11 trading days and the last 10 so
some days have been ignored on months with more than 21 trading days and some
days have been counted twice on months with less than 21 trading days. A dashed
vertical line has been drawn after the 1st trading day and after each successive
5 trading days. The vertical line is solid at 11 trading days, the break point.
The first chart shows the OTC average for all years in orange and the average
for the 3rd year of the Presidential Cycle in green.

The SPX has been up in July 58% of the time with an average gain of 1.2%,
however, during the 3rd year of the Presidential Cycle it has been up 68% of
the time with an average gain of 1.0%.

During all periods most of July's gains have been made in the 1st part of
the month.
Mutual Fund
Compliance issues demand that I not mention the mutual fund that I manage
by name or symbol in this letter.
To see a current chart of the fund go to: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=APHAX&t=6m&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=.
For information about the fund go to: http://www.thealphafunds.com/index.htm.
The fund now has service class shares available.
Conclusion
The first 4 trading days of the month combined with a couple pre holiday
trading days make next week seasonally one of the strongest of the year.
I expect the major indices to be higher on Friday July 6 than they were on
Friday June 29.
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.
Last week the blue chip indices were up slightly while the small cap indices
were down slightly so I am calling last weeks positive forecast a tie.
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