Afternoon Market Summary

10/19/05

Today’s action could possibly be the start of what we would like to see going into the 4th quarter. We had what is technically called a ‘key reversal’ day where the negative open washed out the weak hands and then we ramped straight up on good volume. While we are not throwing caution to the wind, today’s move was very encouraging and makes us optimistic that we may have a bottom in place.

As we came into the day, market participants were focused on a poor report from Intel (INTC) and yesterday’s PPI numbers. During the early going the red continued to flow and breadth was almost 3 to negative. It was exactly what was needed to wash out the early and overly optimistic bulls, who had rushed to embrace the recent dead cat bounce.

As we went through the day, sectors we like to see lead us higher greatly improved, led by retailers closing up over 2%. The semiconductors or SOX index was weighted down most of the day by Intel (INTC), however it managed to grind its way from being down close to 3% to down roughly .50%, which is a very respectable comeback. That sort of bounce on bad news is a sign that the worst is being priced in.

While the market’s move was impressive today, as we mentioned previously we can’t throw caution to the wind after just one good day.  It will be very important to observe the action closely in the days to come.

TSP members who have listened to our caution over the past several weeks may consider taking the opportunity to reposition some funds, slowly back into the market. We wouldn’t advise loading up; as a good market will provide plenty of proper entries and we won’t be completely convinced we are out of the woods until the technical picture improves quite significantly.

Get out that shopping list and start to re-build those positions, but be cautious as a few poor earnings numbers could dampen the party, very quickly.

Have a good evening.

RevShark