هــل نـتـوقـع الارتـفاع او الانـخفـاض ؟

[الاســــتا ذ]

For the week, the Dow added 34.74 points to finish at 10607.23, while the Nasdaq lost 61.37 points to close at 1868.30.

The S&P advanced 1.84 points to end at 1166.14.

It was a mixed week for the equity markets.

For the most part, old economy blue chip names had a solid showing, which helped both the Dow and S&P 500 finish higher.

Technology shares, on the other hand, suffered broad-based
losses due in part to ugly warnings from Nokia and Lucent.

Take note, in January, both of these companies suggested that business conditions were improving. Yet, just two months later, they had to take down their numbers.

This news rattled tech investors, as there continues to be little to no vision within the tech sector regardless of what companies have said to this point.

Also hurting the group were several bearish analyst sales calls which focused on the chip sector.

]The calls tried to point out that chip stocks are quite overvalued given the lack of current demand.

Despite all the bad news for the tech sector, it was still not that bad of a showing and the Nasdaq was still able to finish above support at 1850.

With that said, however, there did appear to be rotation out of tech shares and into stocks which have more "real" earnings and predictable growth trends

 

[الاســــتا ذ]

Moving forward, this upcoming week's direction will once again likely be determined by economic reports. On Tuesday, there will be a FOMC meeting which could offer some clues to the current economic situation (or at least the Fed's view of it).

Virtually everyone agrees that there will not be a change in
interest rates. However, the Fed could offer their stance and provide a few as to whether or not a tightening cycle may be in store for the economy.

Also on the agenda are the housing starts report, jobless claims, the CPI and FOMC minutes.

As far as market direction goes, like the previous two weeks, we still feel that the current rally may have some room to run on the upside.

Obviously, the high number of tech warnings and disappoints is making it very difficult for the Nasdaq to participate, but that actually may help push the Dow and S&P higher to some degree (i.e. sector rotation).

At the same time, with Q1 coming to end, you can be sure that many fund managers may have to start chasing performance (i.e. they are under performing their peers and in danger of losing clients) to keep up.

This could help the markets artificially move higher in the short term. Longer term, however, we remain cautious and feel that the current bear market may still be largely intact and working itself out.

 

[الاســــتا ذ]

Don't let the Monday quiet fool you -- it's going to be a rough-and-tumble week for the U.S. stock markets, highlighted ‎by a Federal Reserve policy meeting and the shareholders' verdict in the proposed Hewlett-Packard acquisition of ‎Compaq