In our article of Sunday, August 29, we weren't very optimistic about the market's near-term prospects after we got "Greenspanked". Yes indeed, the Fed chief thought there was too much dangerous stock market wealth around. so he said that central banks must consider the prices of stocks when setting monetary policy.

Well, the market has been pretty choppy since then, as the following indices show:

In 6 of these 8 trading days, declining issues in both the Dow Industrials and the Nasdaq outnumbered advancing issues. Well, the Chairman can take comfort in knowing that he made sure that stock market wealth was reined in. Now maybe that's O.K. But what's not O.K. is that many investors had losing stocks to begin with, which now have taken a bigger dose of gas, thanks to Uncle Alan.

All is not lost. Aside from the Nifty Fifty, another group of stocks has come to the forefront in this Granddaddy of all Bull Markets. We have often written that 1999 would be the year of the Biotech/Genomic stocks. I'm glad to tell you that we are no longer talking about future events, as that time has arrived when these stocks have awakened from their slumber, and are taking off.

In case you haven't been keeping track, the performance of these stocks has been amazing, not just for the past 12 months, but since Aug. 27. Look at these closing prices:

These are stocks that I follow on a daily basis, and are the most positive examples. Others that I follow have not moved much in this period, and a very few are down fractionally. The potential in these stocks is explosive, and that includes the downside when the FDA turns down a New Drug Application. That said, this group has a long way to go, and the larger stocks in the group will be pulling the smaller ones to some extent. We are still early in the move, and I think we are just in the top of the second inning. Stay tuned.

The Market Pro - September 8, 1999