Below 10,800 at 10:50 Quote.com

-- Susie (Susie0884@aol.com), February 09, 2000

Answers

Let me know when the Dow hits 5000,so I can believe that there is NO INFLATION.Prices of corporate IOUs go down,You win. Do you ever wonder how an Oil Company,that has been in Existence for 100 Years is still Billions in the RED??Floating all that Debt,without ever planning to pay it back??There need to be some drastic Changes made in this Racket!!!

-- Screwed ($$$@$$$.$$), February 09, 2000.

This is nothing but normal chop in a turbulent market. If you want to see a real drop look for information about the drop in 1987. The market fell by about 23% on the one day. The 23% drop in todays terms would be a 2500 point drop which can't happen in one day any more. The dow is capped at 500 points in either direction(+ or -). After the 500 point drop the market closes for the day.

This is not the day to be a doomer. Well, unless if you saw 60 minutes II last night about the Missilears.

-- Ned (ned@nednet.com), February 09, 2000.

Yeah, the new stops will allow the market to decline in a much more orderly fashion: more a sawtooth pattern than the whistling plummet that it had back in 19987.

Talk about volatile. Have a look at an Intraday chart for today, specifically the 11AM-noon timeframe. Nothing like having the Nasdaq lose a full 2% in just an hour to get the ol' adrenal glands working, eh? I really thought it would display its usual resilience and climb most (perhaps even all) of the way back by the close, and it was doing so right up to 3PM EST. Then it just fell out of bed. Well, maybe it won't make a new low. That'll be a bit of cold comfort...

The markets lately remind me of an NBA game. You can miss almost the whole game, but if you catch the last quarter (in this case 2PM-4PM), that's all that really matters. We can and do see full 2-3% moves of the indices in just those last two hours. Fascinating...

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), February 09, 2000.

Ned, Dee: Do either of you see any significance in the Dow breaking the 10,800 barrier? for that matter, does the Dow still have the importance as a bellwether that it once had? It seems so narrowly based compared to the overall market. Some people seem to put more weight on the Nasdaq these days, and the S&P 500 has a strong fan base. FWIW, stock market cycle guru Dhruv Sheth (sp?) out in San Francisco issued a crash alert today over on the Longwaves forum. I assume it went out to his customers and his website too.

-- Cash (cash@andcarry.com), February 09, 2000.

I see it more akin to a person in a parka and combat boots flailing on the surface, trying to keep his head above water.

But then again, what do I know? According to the experts, conventional tracking methods such as P/E ratios no longer apply.

-- Tim (pixmo@pixelquest.com), February 09, 2000.

C$C:

I like to quote words of Malcolm Muggeridge on the news of the 20th century:

"Everything's true, except the facts."

>"<

-- Squirrel Hunter (nuts@upina.cellrelaytower), February 09, 2000.

Since we've had crash alerts seemingly every week for the past three years, it's hard to put much stock in another one (no pun intended).

Re DJIA 10,800: the index took out that level during the January slide just a few weeks ago, then recovered back to 11K in about a week. Current range looks more like 10,600 to 11,000.

Agree re Dow's narrowness. Better to look at a few other indices (e.g., Nasdaq and S&P500) and compare them. Dow gives you historical and psychological value (it's the one index that absolutely everyone watches), S&P500 gives you breadth and balance, and Nasdaq Composite (aka COMP) gives you the wonderful world of the techs.

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), February 09, 2000.

Ned: Missilears? I missed that one.

-- Susie (susie0884@aol.com), February 09, 2000.

Here are the numbers for Q4 1999. the numbers for Q1 2000 are essentially the same.

C

Not sure of the exact link, but this is from the www.nyse.com websight in Press Releases: NYSE Announces Fourth-Quarter 1999 Circuit-Breaker and Trading-Collar Levels

NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 1999 -- The New York Stock Exchange announced circuit-breaker and trading-collar trigger levels for fourth-quarter 1999, effective Friday, Oct. 1, will continue to remain the same as for the third quarter. Circuit-breaker points represent the thresholds at which trading is halted market wide for single-day declines in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The 10, 20 and 30 percent decline levels, respectively, in the DJIA remain as follows:

7 A 1,050-point drop in the DJIA before 2 p.m. will halt trading for one hour; for 30 minutes if between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m.; and have no effect if at 2:30 p.m. or later.

7 A 2,150-point drop in the DJIA before 1 p.m. will halt trading for two hours; for one hour if between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.; and for the remainder of the day if at 2 p.m. or later.

7 A 3,200-point drop will halt trading for the remainder of the day regardless of when the decline occurs.

Trading collars, which restrict index arbitrage trading, will be triggered during fourth-quarter 1999 when the DJIA moves 210 points or more above or below its closing value on the previous trading day and removed when the DJIA is above or below the prior day's close by 100 points.

Trading collars will be implemented as follows:

7 A decline in the DJIA of 210 points or more will require all index arbitrage sell orders of the S&P 500 stocks to be stabilizing, or sell plus A market order to sell "plus" is a market order to sell a stated amount of a stock provided that the price to be obtained is not lower than the last sale if the last sale was a "plus" or "zero plus" tick, and is not lower than the last sale plus the minimum fractional change in the stock if the last sale was a "minus" or "zero minus" tick. A limited price order to sell "plus" would have the additional restriction of stating the lowest price at which it could be executed. , for the remainder of the day, unless on the same trading day, the DJIA advances 100 points or less below its previous day's close.

7 An advance in the DJIA of the 210 points will require all index arbitrage buy orders of the S&P 500 stocks to be stabilizing, or buy minus A buy "minus" is a market order to buy a stated amount of a stock provided that the price to be obtained is not higher than the last sale if the last sale was a "minus" or "zero minus" tick, and is not higher than the last sale minus the minimum fractional change in the stock if the last sale was a "plus" or "zero plus' tick. A limited price order to buy "minus" would have the additional restriction of stating the highest price at which it could be executed. , for the remainder of the day, unless the DJIA retreats to 100 points or less above its previous day's close.

7 The restrictions will be re-imposed each time the DJIA advances or declines 210 points from its previous day's close.

Circuit-breaker levels are set quarterly as 10, 20 and 30 percent of the DJIA average closing values of the previous month, rounded to the nearest 50 points. The percentage levels were first implemented in April 1998 and are adjusted quarterly on Jan. 1, April 1, July 1 and Oct. 1. The revised collars are also calculated quarterly, as 2 percent of the average closing value of the DJIA for the last month of the previous quarter, rounded down to the nearest 10 points. They are removed when the DJIA advances or retreats from the prior day's close to less than or equal to half of the 2 percent value, rounded down to the nearest 10 points.

1.A market order to sell "plus" is a market order to sell a stated amount of a stock provided that the price to be obtained is not lower than the last sale if the last sale was a "plus" or "zero plus" tick, and is not lower than the last sale plus the minimum fractional change in the stock if the last sale was a "minus" or "zero minus" tick. A limited price order to sell "plus" would have the additional restriction of stating the lowest price at which it could be executed.

2.A buy "minus" is a market order to buy a stated amount of a stock provided that the price to be obtained is not higher than the last sale if the last sale was a "minus" or "zero minus" tick, and is not higher than the last sale minus the minimum fractional change in the stock if the last sale was a "plus" or "zero plus' tick. A limited price order to buy "minus" would have the additional restriction of stating the highest price at which it could be executed.

-- Clyde (clydeblalock@hotmail.com), October 15, 1999. Chuck.

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), February 09, 2000.

Chuck: Thanks for the figures. A drop like those would, I suspect, really get our attention!

-- Susie (Susie0884@aol.com), February 10, 2000.

Vultures feeding on the dying bodies of pollies who don't realize they are in the desert of electronic(sand) money. The pollies still have a smidgen of water in their only canteen. But, in a desert with no water it can't last forever. And when the vultures run out of meat they die also.

-- Kyle (midtnbuddy@juno.com), February 10, 2000.

But, life goes on and there has to be ONE solution.

-- Kyle (midtnjobuddy@aol.com), February 10, 2000.

Re S&P500:

I learned something new this morning (thus making it a good day right off the bat). According to bubblevision (aka CNBC), the S&P500 now has a 32% weighting in tech, which is far and away the most of any sector in that index. That explains the divergence in behavior between the Dow and S&P; the latter now responds to tech movement more like the COMP. It would seem that the folks at Standard and Poor's have decided that tech drives the bus now and that the S&P500 should be weighted to reflect this.

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), February 10, 2000.

DMB,

It's not a conscious decision. The S&P just takes the 500 biggest companies based on market value. The tech stocks have increased so much so quickly relative to the rest of the market that they are now major players in the indices.

People who own "index" funds because they figure they are conservative are in for a big shock soon.

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), February 10, 2000.

nothere -

Many thanks for the clarification. So the S&P gets loaded up with tech as their share prices balloon. Interesting.

Well, we're in the fourth quarter of today's game and the Dow just went through 10,660, which was the intraday low (set around 10:45AM and tested around 1:45PM). Poor thing's been underwater most of the day.

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), February 10, 2000.

DMB: Dow down to 10,622 at moment (3:25 p.m. EST). Any thoughts on if it closes under 10600? And why is it that lately most of the action seems to occur after lunch, in the last two hours of market?

-- Cash (cash@andcarry.com), February 10, 2000.

amazing place, this board. Why I didn't find it long ago I'll never know. A friend recommended it to me. Anyway, I just checked Yahoo for a Dow reading and was shocked to see it had dropped 255 points so far today (just after 3:25 now), most of it aparently in the afternoon. The 10,000 level seems to be seriously endangered, not today but certainly next week, although I expect to see major resistance there. And the after-lunch bearish trading pattern of the past week indicates that most of the profit takers are the serious investors, not the day- traders and Peoria types. Even nasdaq isn't providing its usual counterbalance. Alarming, to me.

-- J.Alfred (not@player.instocks), February 11, 2000.

Let's let The Street.com summarize today's action, shall we?

Dow and Nasdaq Way Lower at Close

2/11/00 4:06 PM ET

By Eric Gillin, Editorial Assistant

The good news: It's all over.

The bad news: It stunk.

Markets were awash in losses that reached plague-like proportions. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 217 to 10,427, chasing this week's losses with more losses.

Most of the blue-chips were sour. Twenty-one of the 30 industrials were on the negative side with six adding losses of 10 or more to the Dow. The following stocks were not good: Caterpillar (CAT:NYSE - news), Du Pont (DD:NYSE - news), Hewlett-Packard (HWP:NYSE - news), IBM (IBM:NYSE - news), Merck (MRK:NYSE - news) and Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq - news).

And don't look at four-letter stocks to break the red curse. The Nasdaq Composite Index was off 90 to 4396, led lower by a flock of notable names.(But no seagulls!)

Microsoft was already mentioned, but Cisco (CSCO:Nasdaq - news), Yahoo! (YHOO:Nasdaq - news), Qualcomm (QCOM:Nasdaq - news), Dell (DELL:Nasdaq - news), 3Com (COMS:Nasdaq - news) and Apple (AAPL:Nasdaq - news), were all lower, weighing down the Comp.

With all these tech names lower, and bellwether Yahoo! taking the plunge, the TheStreet.com Internet Sector index doesn't stand a chance. It was last off 24 to 1154.

The Russell 2000 was off 5 to 537, while the benchmark S&P 500 fell 29 to 1388.

If you look at the charts, what I assume are "sell programs" started to kick butt right around 2:30PM and it took one heck of a rally in the last half-hour just to get the indices back to a 2% loss across the board.

The Dow is now down more than 10% from its high in early January and has lost all of the gains from that late 1999 rally. What I find interesting is that there are a number of normally neutral-to-bullish analysts who are saying that it could certainly correct all the way down to those October lows (testing 10,000).

Nasdaq, on the other hand, has a very long way to go to retrace its last 3 months of gains, and it is perhaps best not to think too long about the consequences of such a retracement.

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), February 11, 2000.

Another interesting nugget from The Street.com:

Dow Pierces Key Support

With all the attention focused on the tech sector and the whopping moves in the Nasdaq, seemingly quietly, the blue-chip Dow has broken through some notable support levels, one strategist pointed out today.

Tim Hayes, senior equity strategist at Ned Davis Research in Nokomis, Fla., noted that the Dow has broken through support at 10,740. After that he pegged its next near-term support at 10,560, which the Dow easily pierced.

Hayes said the risk for the year on the downside for the Dow is 8900. His current asset allocation is 45% stocks, 30% bonds and 25% cash.

With that allocation model, he said, "we're saying a heavy cash position is warranted" because the Federal Reserve in a "hostile mode of raising interest rates" and there's no evidence it's finished hiking. And it isn't just a U.S. trend with rates, he said, noting that the globe is in an interest-rate uptrend...

Dow 8900 (full 20% correction) would essentially wipe out all of 1999. Ye gods...

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), February 11, 2000.

Dee, Interesting posts. Thanks.

-- Susie (Susie0884@aol.com), February 11, 2000.