Thursday, November 17, 2005

Stocks Sharply Higher Mid-day on Fall in Oil and Long-term Rates

Indices
S&P 500 1,239.11 +.64%
DJIA 10,705.65 +.29%
NASDAQ 2,209.09 +.97%
Russell 2000 664.68 +1.54%
DJ Wilshire 5000 12,377.91 +.77%
S&P Barra Growth 593.60 +.40%
S&P Barra Value 641.11 +.85%
Morgan Stanley Consumer 592.26 +.45%
Morgan Stanley Cyclical 754.87 +1.05%
Morgan Stanley Technology 522.64 +1.52%
Transports 4,064.28 +1.57%
Utilities 396.49 +1.29%
Put/Call .78 +1.30%
NYSE Arms .79 -6.72%
Volatility(VIX) 11.75 -4.16%
ISE Sentiment 180.00 +20.0%
US Dollar 91.93 -.43%
CRB 313.28 -.64%

Futures Spot Prices
Crude Oil 56.20 -2.40%
Unleaded Gasoline 145.75 -1.72%
Natural Gas 11.94 -3.16%
Heating Oil 169.50 -1.98%
Gold 486.30 +1.50%
Base Metals 139.01 +.14%
Copper 194.50 +.52%
10-year US Treasury Yield 4.45% -.39%

Leading Sectors
Homebuilders +3.14%
Airlines +2.59%
Networking +2.31%

Lagging Sectors
Oil Service -.08%
Tobacco -.48%
Energy -.58%
BOTTOM LINE: The Portfolio is substantially higher mid-day on gains in my Medical longs, Retail longs, Medical Information System longs and Internet longs. I covered the rest of my IWM and QQQQ shorts this morning and added to my PWR, BBY and MDRX longs, thus leaving the Portfolio 100% net long. The tone of the market is very positive as the advance/decline line is substantially higher, almost every sector is rising and volume is slightly above average. Measures of investor anxiety are mostly lower. Overall, today’s market action is positive considering the strong breadth readings and mixed economic data. A stronger dollar, weakening commodity prices, healthy growth and lower long-term rates are boosting small-caps. The Russell 2000 has slightly underperformed over the last three months. However, the index is up 1.5% today vs. a .6% gain for the S&P 500. I expect small caps to regain their leadership role over the intermediate term on a continuation of recent trends. I expect US stocks to trade mixed-to-higher from current levels into the close as lower long-term rates and falling energy prices more than offset profit-taking.

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