Market Comments
 
October 13, 2005

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Today's Comments (Short Term Outlook)
Rolling the dice

I made a transfer yesterday morning as it appeared the S&P 500 was about to have its 7th down day in the last eight.  Most of you on the email alert list saw I was planning on moving to 50% C fund, 50% F fund.  If you read the message board you may have seen that I made a last minute decision to take it up a notch and go 70% C, 30% F (read the post here).  The S&P was really starting to drop just prior to the deadline so I made the change. 

Because I send out the email alerts, I rarely ever make a move so close to the deadline so I got to see first hand how far you can push that deadline.  My transaction seemed to be processed OK even though the Time of Request was 35 seconds after 12 ET.  My wife's transaction went through at 12:01:18.  So it appears there is some wiggle room on that deadline.

Dear Participant:

Your interfund transfer request has been processed. The details are provided below.
Date of Request: 10/12/2005
Time of Request: 12:00:35 Eastern
Effective Date: 10/12/2005

Investment Percentages You Requested:
G
FUND: 0%
F FUND:30% C FUND:70% S
FUND: 0%
I
FUND: 0%
 

Don't worry that you didn't get a chance to move to 70/30 rather than 50/50.  Trying to catch this falling knife the market is throwing at us can leave a painful mark if I'm wrong.  It is a risky move that I had to make by the deadline, hoping we might see a big triple digit loss on the Dow be fore the day was through.  It never happened so the downside risk is still quite alive.

I'm not sure if we would call it good news but the S&P 500 has now broken below the bullish trend line support level.  That is a technical breakdown and that should have or will caused some panic type selling we've been looking for.  I don't know exactly how far down we will go but the fear I'm seeing and hearing tells me we should see at least a short term bounce quite soon. 


                      Chart provided courtesy of www.decisionpoint.com


The overbought/oversold indicator and the McClellan Oscillator are pretty stretched to the oversold level.  Both are at points not seen since late March.






                      Charts provided courtesy of www.decisionpoint.com

It may take a few hours, days, or maybe a week but we should get some sort of short term end to this slide.  Once it appears more obvious, as in we either get a another major plummet or we see a reversal to the upside with a strong close and small cap stocks coming along for the ride, I will move to a 100% stock allocation.

As far as the next 4 to 8 weeks go, the damage may not be completely done.  Depending on the short term indicators, we may have to step aside again and sell any oversold conditions.  Just as the summer rally lasted much longer than I had anticipated, the move down will likely last longer than we'd like as well. 

Bonds were down again yesterday so I'm nervous but hopeful that the downside is at least temporarily over.  Like stocks they are due for a bit of a bounce.  Hence the F fund rather than G as the safe haven for now.  Again, I'm rolling the dice.

That's all for today.  Currently 30% F, 70% C fund.  I will be looking for an opportunity to move to 100% stocks in the near future.  Thanks for reading. 
                   

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Tom