Today the market made up for Thursday April 16th's losses and then some, going on to new highs on both the Dow Jones Industrials and Nasdaq, to no one's surprise. To no one except that raggedy-assed group of intellectual investors known as the Bears. They'll be right some day of course, but until then they will have missed out on the greatest Bull market of all time. Hopefully they have been in bonds, money market funds, and CD's, etcetera and not selling short, or selling naked calls, as those who have are certainly financial disasters by this time.

The trend is your friend, and always will be. That doesn't mean I advocate buying momentum player's darlings such as the Internet stocks, which took meaningful gas today. Their lofty levels should appeal only to the most sincere gamblers, and something negative may well come out of the blue to chop them down like big timber.

Now that we have done our partial duty by kicking momentum players' butts, I'm going to go against the grain and give you my favorite momentum stock! It's Pfizer. Pfizer's new impotence drug Viagra may be the biggest selling new prescription drug of all time. This is the stuff that booming stocks are made of. When investors can't get a handle on how big a positive development might be, they go nuts trying to get aboard! It seems that whenever Pfizer stock settles back, either because of profit taking in the Drug group or the ever-present fear over their lofty P.E. of 50 times estimated 1998 earnings, there is more positive Viagra news and all the hype that goes with it.

I'm not immune myself, as greed doth spring eternal. I wanted to get in around 97 on Thursday, but I held back because the market was going down as the day progressed. My caution was "rewarded" by the stock going up 3 1/8 while the Dow was down over 85 points! It's tough to be an investor. As you may know, today Pfizer made an all-time high at 105 3/8, closing at 105 3/16 up 4 1/2 - another all-time high. And I'm still outside looking in. For sure, the market does it's best to make fools out of the greatest number (including the Bears) and it succeeds all too often.

Remember that Pfizer's low for the past 12 months is 41 1/2!!! When a stock goes crazy like this, it seems that it will never let you in. Great stocks like Coca Cola, Gillette, Microsoft, Cisco, etcetera always look too expensive. You're inclined to wait for a set-back, and when it comes, you wait for a further drop that never comes, and up it goes again. I'll probably get in by Wednesday, and maybe even as soon as Monday. I hate to pay a sucker price, but I know how easy it is to miss the boat on something like this. If you don't have time to go to Las Vegas, you can have all the action you want right at home by getting in. As always, there are no guarantees. Stay tuned.

The Market Pro - April 17, 1998