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Weekly Market Update - Is this selloff serious?

Naturally the markets would have to tumble as I was traveling Friday. It always seems that major down moves occur when I am out of pocket.

After reviewing the carnage this week I decided that I needed to step back and not jump to conclusions.

First, I decided that I would avoid trying to make any predictions as to what directions markets will take. Better to simply focus on my own portfolio and evaluate whether any changes need to be made.

This was a tough week on some parts of the TradeRadar portfolio. Two stocks were sold when they hit stops: Starbucks (SBUX) and Qualcomm (QCOM). Modest losses were taken in each.

I recently wrote a post describing why I'm overweight tech. Does this week's action signal a change in that strategy? I don't think so. In the tech sector we are holding the ProShares Ultra Technology ETF (ROM), Cisco systems (CSCO) and BigBand Networks (BBND). I track the Select Sector Technology SPDR (XLK) as my high-level tech stock indicator. Looking at the performance of XLK, it has moved up strongly when the trend was up and it has not given up much even as the rest of the market has weakened. For example, XLK had one down day this past week (Friday) while the DOW had five in a row. Though stocks may be weakening, the tech sector still looks to outperform the general market.

I have been negative on REITs for months and have been holding the ProShares UltraShort REIT ETF (SRS). This has been a painful position to be in as the iShares Dow Jones US Real Estate Index ETF (IYR) moved steadily upward from August through the beginning of October. As IYR approached its 200-day moving average it began to weaken and in the last week the downward slide has accelerated. This has given SRS a nice boost upward and I remain comfortable maintaining a negative outlook on REITs.

The remaining stocks in the portfolio, Generex Biotechnology (GNBT) and the ProShares UltraShort QQQ ETF (QID), both gained this week. GNBT finished the week up two cents and QID, as can be expected, finished up $1.62. QID I have kept as a hedge and this week it did provide some comfort.

So the bottom line on this week's action -- our portfolio strategies still seem to be valid (though I sure wish I had dumped BigBand months ago).
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Comments

Speedmaster said…
Nice post. I'm very curious to see what happens Monday. As a 'glass half-full' guy, I usually think of days like Friday as buying opportunities. ;-)
October 21, 2007 at 6:23:00 PM EDT

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