NAILS

The bear is hanging tough today with 1,600 more losers than winners and most sectors including technology stocks selling down. Retailers, internets and semiconductor stocks are leading the groups lower and Oils and Metals are of course higher. The market is getting oversold here and I anticipate taking buy signals at the end of the day on SPY as the 2 day RSI is now back under 10.

Some interesting facts are coming to light. Buy and hold for 2006, not so great as the SPX and the NDX now both show gains of about 2.6% for the year. Take note that the high of the year on the QQQQ was on January 11. Lots of churning since then but primarily lower. Picking stocks/sectors in 2006 as well as buying lower and selling higher has been the way to go as Oils and Golds/Silver have led the markets. SSRI PAAS both up about 40% and the OIH Oil service sector is up about 19% on the year. The GLD, the gold tracking ETF, started the year in the 51 area and is now over 61.

Lenny's(see above) favorite deep in the money call play, INTC, is down about 25% on the year as it barely hangs on to the 19 level. One of last years favorites, AAPL, is down about 10% on the year and SMH, the SOX ETF is now trading down about 2% on the year. MSFT, a buy the big cap tech favorite at the start of the year trades at the 26.8 level all the way up from 26.15 on December 30. GS started the year a hair under 128 and is now solidly over 160 and the brokerage index, XBD, started the year at 196 and now trades over 231.