A Flat Week Is a Victory for the Bulls
VW Shares Still Look Good
EVERY GUNSHOT SOUNDS LIKE THE ONES before, every muzzle flash looks the same. That's why there's no immediate way for the pinned-down market bears to tell by ear or eye whether the dead-eyed stock buyers who are keeping the market firm are out of ammo yet. Such things can only be confirmed in retrospect. What's certain is that those gun-slinging buyers have been making an impressive stand. Last week, once again, the news flow brought plenty of reasons for stocks to sell off, and a weaker tape would've done so. Instead, the indexes held steady.
Retail sales for February were broadly disappointing, personal spending figures came up a bit short, home sales declined for a seventh straight month and crude oil prices clicked above $63 per barrel.
In some weeks, these indicators of an economic deceleration could be embraced by the Panglossian best-of-all-worlds types as evidence that the Federal Reserve would soon stop lifting interest rates, which remains the comfy consensus.
Except that, last week, these softer data were accompanied by a run in 10-year Treasury yields up to one-year highs at 4.69%. And these numbers came as mainstream Wall Street economists were bandying forecasts that the Fed had a full percentage point of tightening left, which would bring overnight money rates to 5.5%. (A strong reading on the services sector Friday, including a jump in its employment component, did stray from the softer data trend and spread some anxiety in the bond market of a healthy payrolls number this coming Friday.)
All of which suggests that, for stocks, a flattish week could plausibly be notched as a victory, and you can bet that Monday's morning research meetings will have strategists talking "can't get them down" and "don't fight a strong tape" lines.
Intel's (ticker: INTC) warning Friday that this quarter's revenue would be light, and its admission that it has lost some market share, was another ready excuse for the stocks to fall apart that the market ignored. Intel itself opened right near its low for the day below 20, and clawed its way up to 20.32. The stock has surrendered one-fourth of its market value since December, but neither that nor Friday's warning undid strength in semiconductor shares, a key risk-appetite gauge.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 40 points, or 0.4%, to settle at 11,021 for the week. The Standard & Poor's 500 lost a marginal 2 points to finish at 1287. The Nasdaq gained 15 points, to reach 2302.
The S&P 500, the most closely watched benchmark by professionals, twice made intraday runs above its bull-cycle high of 1294 set Jan. 11, on Monday and Friday. Both times the index topped pennies above 1297 before succumbing to weakness into the close.
This sort of thing is noise to any investor with a multi-year time horizon. But to the tick-chasers who set the market's marginal price in the very short term, these index boundaries are vested with significance. The fact that the index couldn't hold a newly attempted high twice within five days will cause some itchy traders to conclude that the coast is clear to do some selling. In any case, this doesn't seem like a launch point for a sustained upward move.
The stock market doesn't offer decisive clues every week or month. Ned Davis Research has been calling the tape neutral lately, with monetary headwinds offsetting some encouraging market action. In the latter category, the new highs in leadership groups such as transportation stocks and brokerage shares -- and the broader firmness in the financial sector -- can't be dismissed. Small stocks again outperformed, with the Russell 2000 having put in a good year this quarter, up nearly 10%.
And, as noted here last week by Kopin Tan, investor sentiment has incongruently turned quite subdued even as the market has held its ground.
The market usually corrects to the downside sometime in the spring. And there are longer-term statistical hints that a broader topping process is underway. But for the moment, it's hard to argue bear season is over.
WITH UTILITIES STOCKS CONSISTENTLY among the strongest sectors in the last two years, the bullish case has evolved to accommodate ever-higher valuations. First it was noted that the group was underowned. Then the stocks were cast as stealth commodity plays because of some leverage to natural-gas prices. More recently, it's been said that industry consolidation was the new reason to own the group.
All these points are less persuasive now. While institutions probably don't have major overweights in utilities, the stocks seem too appreciated by retail and fast-money types. Coming into 2006, the utilities-sector SPDR exchange-traded fund had $1.7 billion in assets, the fourth-biggest of the nine sector SPDRs.
The utilities SPDR (ticker: XLU) represented more than 12% of all sector SPDR assets, versus the utilities industry's 3.4% weighting in the S&P 500. (Note that the energy sector ETF is by far the biggest, indicating that as the year started much enthusiasm in energy needed to be worked off.)
打平即是胜利
每一声枪响、每一束枪火都与以前如出一辙。因此，被看涨火力死死压制住的看跌投资者无法立刻断定弹无虚发的看涨者是否已经弹尽粮绝。一切，只能在事后再做判断了。但可以肯定的是，荷枪实弹的看涨投资者骁勇善战的作风令人叹为观止。上周，再次传来大量负面消息，按理说，股市应该走低才是。但实际上，主要股指基本持平。
上周，负面消息接踵而至：2月份零售数据令人普遍感到失望，个人支出数据略逊于预期，房屋销售连续第七个月下滑，原油价格重返每桶63美元之上。
数周来，表明经济减速的这类指标往往会被那些最乐观的投资者视为联邦储备委员会(Federal Reserve, 简称Fed)不久后就会中止加息的证据，而这一点也正是市场目前所普遍预期的。
伴随著这些疲软经济数据的是，上周10年期美国国债收益率一度升至1年高点4.69%。与此同时，华尔街的权威经济学家认为Fed的加息空间还有整整一个百分点，这意味著联邦基金利率最终将升至5.5%。上周五，服务业的强劲数据（如就业分类指数的大幅攀升），与当周的疲软经济数据显得有些格格不入，也让一些债市投资者担心本周五公布的就业数据表现良好。
综上所述，股市上周基本持平的走势可以被视为一个胜利，周一早间的研讨会上投资者或许会听到策略师说出“看涨投资者不会轻易屈服”、“不要逆股市强劲的基调而动”等诸如此类的点评。
英特尔(Intel)上周五警告说，当前的第一财政季度收入将低于此前的预期，并承认市场占有率有所下降。英特尔的消息本应成为投资者抛售股票的一个现成借口，但实际上这条消息根本没有受到市场的重视。上周五，英特尔的开盘价不到20美元，接近盘中低点，收盘时小幅反弹至20.32美元。去年12月以来，英特尔的股价已经下跌了四分之一，但英特尔的持续下跌行情以及上周五的预警都没能撼动半导体类股的强势。需要指出的是，半导体类股的走势是衡量投资者承受风险意愿的一个关键指标。
道琼斯工业股票平均价格指数上周累计下跌40点，至11021点，跌幅0.4%；标准普尔500指数跌2点，至1287点。那斯达克综合指数涨15点，至2302点。
最受专业市场人士关注的标准普尔500指数曾在上周一和上周五的盘中两次突破1月11日创下的牛市高点1294点，两次均一度冲至略高于1297点的水平，但收盘时却无一例外地走低。
市场的这种走势只会让目光长远的长线投资者略微分散一些注意力。但在从任何细小的价格波动中都能觅得良机的超短线投资者来说，股指在上行途中遇到阻力具有重要意义。标准普尔500指数在五天内有两天创下新高、但均未能守住胜果的事实可能使一些心急的交易员得出如下结论：该是抛售一些股票的时候了。无论如何，标准普尔500指数冲高回落的走势都不是表明将市场迎来持续攀升行情的信号。
股市不是每周或每月都能提供明确的线索。Ned Davis Research近来对股市持中性观点，其理由是货币政策的负面因素抵消了市场的一些积极迹象。在这些积极迹象中，运输和经纪等颇具影响力的类股创下新高及金融类股扩大上涨面尤为不容忽视。小型股的表现再次强于大盘，罗素2000指数本季度以来的涨幅接近10%，为今年开了好兆头。
不过，正如上周本专栏所指出的那样，尽管市场基本持平，但投资者人气却变得相当平和，与市场的走势相比显得有些不和谐。
市场在春季的某个时候往往会向下回调，而且中长期数据也预示一个更大的顶部正在形成。但眼下而言，尚不能断言熊市已经告一段落了。
