What a day. This was another character builder, that's for sure. On Monday we wrote that you should beware something coming out of left field. Well, Brazil's equivalent of Greenspan quitting followed by effective currency devaluation of 8% sure was a left field event.

The Dow Industrials went down 260 points, and the Nasdaq went down 114 points. Then the money started pouring in, and the Dow and Nasdaq closed down 125 and 3 points respectively. Even though those are negative numbers, the recovery was impressive. Still a considerable spanking was administered, with Dow and Nasdaq advance decline ratios being 9 to 21 and 15 to 21 respectively.

Those tulip bulb historians among you may find it interesting that of the 15 Internet stocks I follow, all 15 were down. Gee, I think that's a high percentage. Yahoo was down 34 points, after announcing better than consensus estimate financial results and a stock split. I think the musical chairs melody may be dying down, and the players are starting to count themselves and the chairs. Uh-oh, I think they're one chair short.

Tomorrow's market should be very choppy, with an overall upward bias. I say that as the contest is between unsettling international news plus Washington D.C. proceedings, offset by positive earnings news on balance and MONEY still pouring in. Technology is still the place to be. The top tier have had such a tremendous run, that I prefer secondary issues such as C-Cube Microsystems, Novell, Qualcomm, and SanDisk. In fact I prefer them so much I own stock in all four. That's the ultimate sincere opinion. Anyway, I'm still bullish, but I keep my eye on left field. Stay tuned.

The Market Pro - January 13, 1999