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July 24, 2006
So did you buy tech?, Mon., July 24, 2006, 11:05 PM
In this week's Week In Review, I had a lot to say about how over-sold and ready to rally were the techs. I was pretty explicit.
Of course, this WIR #29-2006 was by far the biggest report I have ever done " something like 150 pages produced in about eight hours. It was so big it crashed my server yesterday morning.
At least some of you got to read it before the market opened today. And this is what you read about the tech stocks in the Cara 100.
"Right now in the tech group, I think the stocks of good quality U.S.-based companies (CSCO, SNDK, YHOO, DELL, QCOM, EBAY, LLTC, MXIM, and GOOG) are well oversold and ready to rally -- briefly at least.I'll be watching for the Bears to trounce again to determine the timing of the next sell-off. I may be selling then, and later buying the dips of stocks of these good quality companies.
At some point, I won't be selling " but rather holding for probably three years. This is a matter of chart watching to see if the Bear market pattern of lower lows and lower highs is broken. Then all of you can buy the dips with reasonable assurance the cycle bottom is past.
Other stocks in this over-sold group (but with a few more bids in the past week) include RIMM, ADBE, INTC, ADSK, CTSH, and GRMN.
You'll note that all these are in the Cara 100. Now I can't tell you the precise date when the new Bull market starts, but when it does, most (if not all) of these stocks will rally hard.
I also have in the Cara 100, two stocks that are presently under accumulation " one (ATI Tech: ATYT) for the rumor that AMD is going to make a bid to buy the company, and one (Oracle: ORCL) for goodness knows why.
Regrettably (based only on recent price performance), I have two other tech companies " both in emerging markets " in the Cara 100, and both have been hammered in price recently.
Infosys Technologies (INFY) of India had a superior quarter to Oracle, but the stock has been caught in the India market downdraft, particularly on Friday.
NetEase.com is a China company that makes popular computer games. The company is sound, well managed and so forth, but has been taken down along with other China tech companies, largely on the notion that China is going to crack down on Internet companies. I don't see NetEase.com as an Internet company even though the name suggests otherwise.
If I were visiting China, this is one company I would be sure to pay a visit and get to know.
The operating metrics (Margins, ROA, ROE) are terrific, the revenue almost doubled in the past year, and EBIT and Net Income and EPS did double. It is still a tiny company, with a lot of risk involved, but so far management has impressed me and I love the market they are in. It could be an Electronic Arts (ERTS) in the making.
The June quarter will be reported soon apparently. If the results are consistent with trend, this stock could jump +33 pct inside a month.
But take note that the stock was hammered -8 pct on Friday and has been in a free fall the past week. JP Morgan downgraded from Over-weight to Neutral on Friday and Susquehanna Financial downgraded from Positive to Neutral on Wednesday. In mid-May, Citigroup also downgraded from Buy to Neutral.
Far be it for me to stand up to these Wall Street giants, and admittedly I haven't interviewed the company, but I say let's wait for the 2Q06 report and then decide. If you buy this stock at $17 or below, and the company earns say $1.20/share in the next four quarters, you've bought good value, and somewhere down the line you'll see JP Morgan, Susquehanna and Citigroup back on board, late to the party as usual."
I said in the WIR that I would take these stocks for a brief ride and then get off. So how was the ride -- or at least the start of it? How did the Cara 19 techs do today versus the market?
The Dow and Nasdaq were up +1.68 pct and +2.05 pct respectively, for an average of about +1.87 pct on the day. But my 19 tech stocks that I said were ready to rally did in fact rally by +3.73 pct.
So my 19 stocks doubled the performance of the broad market today on a spectacular day for the broad market.
Even if, for some unknown reason, you took out ATYT, which I said was rumored to be acquired by AMD, and in fact was this morning, causing a gain of +18.78 pct on the day, the other 18 Cara stocks gained +2.89 pct. That is a full percentage point out-performance of the market in a single day.
And if you remove ORCL, which was one of two losers out of 19, which I wrote was trading in a dubious fashion last week, the average gain of the other 18 was +3.99 pct.
So, yes, I did call the rally in the techs. And I believe that if the techs are going to rally, the broad market is likely to follow.
Now, do I think this rally is likely to follow through? Anything is possible in the market, but I don't think this rally will last long " maybe a few days or even a couple weeks. The bogeyman is of course the FOMC meeting on August 8, and the actions being taken by other central banks to raise their benchmark interest rates.
Moreover, there are a great number of quarterly reports this month that are guiding on the negative side for next quarter. And next quarter, the guidance will likely be that much more negative.
So today's rally is a mere correction in a Bear market, and those usually last long enough for the prop desks of Humungous Bank & Broker to rustle up enough bids to clear their inventory " right before the broad market sags again.
The point is, I think the equity market will sag again, still seeking a cycle bottom.
Seventeen of these 19 Cara 100 tech companies (including EBAY, which I now include in the consumer discretionary sector) had a great day today. However, I fear there will be days ahead " say within a month or two " where they lose in the aggregate as much or more than they gained today.
So, yes, I was ready for the rally today, but I will not chase the group higher because I believe the risks are still too high.
When the broad market does hit a cycle bottom, however, I think this cycle will be different.
Typically the falling interest rates drive the regulated utilities and telcos and the financials ahead in the leadership of the first wave of the new Bull market. But since I don't see how interest rates can drop so fast and far this cycle, I'll be looking for the techs to show leadership. Besides, they started their Bear phase earlier that the other sectors, as seen by solid companies like Intel, Dell and Cisco.
Today's action was more than short covering in the techs, I feel. I believe it represented the first day of the Accumulation by major funds of some pretty fine tech companies.
They'll nibble for a while and then hold off as they use the rally to sell off some of their tech holdings they don't want to keep for the next Bull. Then the market will dip again.
Gradually, there will be a higher low and then a higher high, and the Bear will transform into a Bull. I expect that to occur in 4Q06 (best case) or 1Q07.
Also today's market rally was due to the buying of legitimate traders who were seeking bargain values. Today was a different type of action altogether than the 19th of July and the 15th and 29th of June, which I believe were market manipulations by a relatively small group of traders, probably helped by the Fed.
Nevertheless, from what little I did observe today (as I was in meetings), I did note a lot of cheerleading from Financial Entertainment TV this morning. CNBC's Bob Pisani was really rocking for those who watch that sort of thing.
Tomorrow all the experts will be dressed in their clown suits and sent to the media to spin their tales. But just last Friday these same people were thinking of taking off on vacation.
Tomorrow they'll be all full of fire and brimstone. They'll be preaching hell and damnation for the Bears.
Enough said.
Posted by Posted by Bill Cara on July 24, 2006 11:05:53 PM | Category: 45 Info Technology , Cara Global 100 Best Companies
Discourse
So how have people enjoyed the jump of SNDK to $47+? It is quite unbelievable to see the company make the 26% turn. I had sold $35, $32.5, and $27.5 PUTS just a couple of days earlier. What's the liklihood that we'll see SanDisk tumble back down to the 35 region (or lower)?
Bill, do you have any new insight on where the Bear will take SanDisk?
PS: NVDA was up 12%, ALTR rose 10%, ATYT 18%, and SNDK 26% by the end of earnings announcements.
Posted by: Fazeli
at
July 25, 2006 12:08 AM [link]
Fazeli,
I had considered removing SNDK from my Cara 100 list, but upon review of the detailed reports from UBS and others, I decided to keep it in. I do like the company although I am a little ticked that management didn't give traders a heads-up when chip pricing collapsed in the past year. We had to figure that out for ourselves, which is not the way the game is supposed to be played.
In any event, management is operating a tight ship there, and I (and others; UBS for instance) think the upside will be considerable, so the company is still in the Cara 100.
Last week, I had the call on SNDK about right. A couple days ago, I said (i) SNDK was nearing my Accumulation Zone, and (ii) on the weekend (WIR#29) I wrote that it was ready to rally (short-term) with the others, which it did on Monday.
But I don't think the near-term blood-letting is over for the stock or the peer group yet, and so I would recommend taking the short-term gain and re-entering again below 40.
Volume is up across the tech board today and I think this is summertime speculation because there is little other action and tech prices have had a reasonable short-term correction. Overall, I still see tech (and broad market) charts looking like playing a slinky toy down the stairs. New bottoms are forthcoming for several weeks. This is not quite yet a good time for long-term accumulation - just going for the trades that can net 5% or better in a 15 - 30 day period. There are lots of possibilities out there.
So for SNDK, I will keep buying the dips with a rally about to start, and then selling if I think there is no follow through on the rally.
What I'm doing is to get a better feel for the trading so that when the reversal of the long-term stock cycle does occur -- sometime likely 4Q06 or 1Q07 -- which will be evidenced by higher highs and higher lows -- then I will just hold onto my position and ride it up.
Posted by: Bill Cara
at
July 25, 2006 3:13 PM [link]


From an intra-day standpoint, today's rally lacked volume on its rallys and the TICK never sustained anything above 1000. To me, it looked like a (Ney) gap open. I'd expect another day of meandering while the bag-holders get their fill.
Posted by: omphalos
at
July 24, 2006 11:38 PM [link]