Content-type: text/plain

Lest you think yesterday's commentary was just a political diatribe,
consider this news report from this morning:

        LONDON (Reuters) - World oil prices came off all-time
        highs on Friday after this week's bull run but remained
        strong on fears of a supply crunch later this year.

        Prices in New York and London raced to all-time highs
        this week as traders shrugged off OPEC pledges for
        extra supply and doubted whether inventory levels and
        flagging crude output were enough to satisfy the
        world's seemingly unquenchable oil thirst. ...

There are key words there: "fears", "traders shrugged
off", "and
doubted", "world's ... unquenchable ... thirst".  Prices now are not
being driven by objective scarcity of a physical resource, but by an
emotional bubble in the trading pits.  It's just market speculation.

That is not to say that excessive consumption isn't a legitimate
issue--Chaiman Mao's Beijing now has an off-road Jeep Club, fer
chrysakes.  There's no question the whole third-world cannot become
American-style consumers.  Hello!  Natural resources are important.
There's going to be more competition, i.e. higher prices.  There are
investing opportunities there.  We also need to plan for the added
expense.

Money and politics often go hand-in-hand.  Money is known as "the
mother's milk of politics."  As much as possible we must filter politics
out of our investment analysis and decision making.  There's an old
aphorism, "when money speaks, the truth keeps silent."  We need to get
beyond all the hype and claims, and get a grasp on investing reality.
Have we forgotten what happened in the 90's?  Got any KKD (Krispy Kreme
Donuts)?  Got any JDSU?

Yesterday's commentary wasn't about politics, oil, ANWR, conservation,
or any such thing!  It was about keeping open-minded enough to be a
little skeptical, asking good questions and objectively persuing
answers.  You are the beneficiary of your investments, that makes YOU
responsible for the decisions, not some advisor, not some tipster.

Today's market was mostly down until late in the session.  There are two
reasons.  Today was one of those "triple witching days" when lots of
options expire.  But perhaps more important, the S&P rebalanced their
indices.  Their indices are "market capitalization" weighted, meaning it
matters how many shares are outstanding and available for trading, the
so-called "float".  That changes over time.  The effect is index funds
and ETF's (exchange traded funds) have to adjust their portfolios,
causing extra trading in these stocks.  It may also change the apparent
value of some stocks.

So while at the close prices recovered to close basically unchanged,
volume rose to +25% above average.  That will change my computation of
average volume for a few weeks.

 Price    Vola-    Momen-   Volume   Oscil-   Summ.
 Change   tility   tum               lator    Index
 -__+     -__+     -__+     -__+     -__+     -__+

 __<_     _|__     __|_     _<__     _<__     ___<     03/14
 _<__     _|__     _|__     _<__     |___     ___<     03/15
 _<__     _|__     _|__     __<_     <___     __<_     03/16
 ____     _|__     __<_     |___     __<_     03/17
 ___     _|__     ___|     <___     __<_     03/18

Timing Signals:  I don't use or recommend timing signals, but they're
fun to watch.  If I did though, well, I might use something like this.
(Be warned!!  It tends to whipsaw around signal points!)

Last Signal: SELL       Date:  03/15/05 S&P:    1198
Winner or Loser:  Loser                 By:     -9

See my market tracking charts for '03-'04 and my investment strategy
study at my website(s):
http://www.xprt.net/~pgrogers/Pers.html
http://www.angelfire.com/or/paulrogers/Pers.html
http://www.geocities.com/paulgrogers/Pers.html



Paul Rogers, paulgrogers{at}yahoo.com                       -o)
http://www.angelfire.com/or/paulrogers                   /\\
Rogers' Second Law: Everything you do communicates.     _\_V

... IT IS documented, look under "For Internal Use Only."
___ MultiMail/MS-DOS v0.35

---