Early Movers for Monday, October 11

Today's Range Contraction Play

The coil scanner picked up WMB. Williams broke out after going sideways the last several months and is now pausing. Remember that this stock fell into drill-bit territory ($0.78 low in July 2002) during the Enron debacle. Value investors who understood the business and figured the company would survive have made out like bandits.

WMB, 30-min. Chart

Best and Worst Performing Stocks (year-over-year)

I scanned my universe of stocks (about 1600) for the best and worst performers year-over-year.

Best:

• Research In Motion Ltd (RIMM)
  {makers of BlackBerry}
• Petroleum Development Corp (PETD)
  {independent energy company... natural gas and oil}
• Kmart Holding Corp (KMRT)
  {discount retailer, emerged from Chapter 11 protection in May 2003}
• Cleveland-Cliffs Inc (CLF)
  {producer of iron ore pellets, sells to integrated steel producers}
• Lone Star Technologies Inc (LSS)
  {holding company, steel and oilfield tubular products}

Worst:

• Delta Air Lines Inc (DAL)
  {airline}
• Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc (KKD)
  {specialty retailer of doughnuts}
• FLYi Inc (FLYI)
  {regional airline, formerly Atlantic Coast Airlines}
• Ciena Corp (CIEN)
  {networking products for telecommunications service providers}
• SCM Microsystems Inc (SCMM)
  {solutions that enable secure access to digital content and services}

Sentiment Update for the Week Ending October 8, 2004

You can see that last week the stock market came very near the June high before reversing. The public sentiment improved, which is bearish, so it's likely that the "lower high" the market made will stick. Just like two weeks ago when the bears were trapped short, it's now the bulls who are trapped long. I'll continue to stand aside until I see the sentiment get much worse; I'll be happy to put more money to work when it does.

Vanguard Total Stock Market VIPERs, Weekly Chart

Clean, Simple, Uncluttered -- these are the principles of good design

I went through Technorati's Top 100 list of websites and found only a handful that I consider well designed:

• Alex King
• dooce
• Joi Ito's Web
• kottke.org
• Photo Matt
• zeldman.com

John Brennan on the Importance of Patience and Perspective:

I abandoned some of the growth stocks I bought during the bubble, mainly because the companies went bust and their stocks got delisted. ;-)

401(k) Ownership Should Be a U.S. Election Issue, by John Wasik:

Buffett's Berkshire could be the right 'fund' for you, by Rob Carrick:

It was a good idea 30 years ago, but today BRK.A has $130+ billion market cap. What kind of returns can one reasonably expect from that size elephant? The answer is very low, as Buffett himself has said over and over.

iShares Launches the First Pure Mainland China ETF for U.S. Investors

A Bit of Inspired Photoshopping

-- via From Here To Obscurity --