Commentary:
Tasty Pudding
It's early yet, but it's shaping up to be a good
earnings season.
I love the excitement of earnings season. Every
day is a new day. Every day has the potential for
joy. You never know what will happen. Promise
is in the air.
It's more fun than the rest of the year, when we
plod along in the dark, hoping for good news
from the Fed, or from the economy, or from any
of the other arcane sources that have so much
to say about our progress.
When you come down to it, earnings are all that
matter. The right to future earnings is the product
we buy and sell in the stock market. Everything
else is noise. It's just something we employ in
our futile quest to forecast future earnings.
Earnings season is proof time. It's when we get
to see how our hopes and theories stack up
against reality. Instead of worrying about what
might happen, we find out what did happen. As
the proverb says, the proof of the pudding is in
the eating.
So far the pudding is pretty tasty, at least until the
market got spooked Friday afternoon. Earnings
are never the whole story, alas.
And next week, maybe the pudding will be
mm-mm good. You never know. That's why
I like earnings season.
The Week Day by Day:
Tuesday carried the week. We can't complain.
And it's always gratifying to leave the NASDAQ
in the dust.
The Week's Top Gainers and Losers
| Gainers | Losers | ||
| MVIS | + 17.6% | BWNG | - 11.6% |
| ENER | + 8.4% | IKAN | - 5.4% |
| TXN | + 8.1% | S | - 3.3% |
| CPHD | + 8.1% | INTC | - 2.0% |
| LNOP | + 7.3% | SYNA | - 1.2% |
Honorable mention to GLW, plus 7.2%.
Returns for the Week:
Gilder Technology Index (GTI):
+ 2.3%
Nasdaq Composite
Index (NSD): + 0.7%
S&P 500 Index (S&P): + 1.7%
Historical Returns:
| Period | GTI | NSD | S&P |
| 1997 (est'd) | 21% | 22% | 31% |
| 1998 (est'd) | 48% | 40% | 27% |
| 1999 | 284% | 86% | 20% |
| 2000 | - 44% | - 39% | - 10% |
| 2001 | - 43% | - 21% | - 13% |
| 2002 | - 56% | - 32% | - 23% |
| 2003 | 130% | 50% | 26% |
| 2004 | 3% | 9% | 9% |
| 2005 | 5% | 1% | 3% |
| 2006 to date | 26.6% | 6.2% | 5.0% |
| Avg for 9+ yrs | 12.6% | 6.6% | 6.3% |
| Last 52 wks | 58% | 21% | 14% |
|
Since the
high of 3/06/00 |
- 72% | - 54% | - 14% |
|
Since the low of 10/09/02 |
371% | 110% | 69% |
Comparison of Returns
for GTI Stocks
By Whether or Not They Pay Dividends:
| Year | Do Pay Dividends |
Do Not
Pay Dividends |
| 2004 | 11.6% | - 3.3% |
| 2005 | 11.1% | 4.2% |
| 2006 to date | 6.3% | 35.8% |
| Avg for 2+ yrs | 12.7% | 14.6% |
Room to Grow:
| GTI | NSD | S&P | |
|
Loss from the high to the low |
94% | 78% | 49% |
|
% of the loss recovered |
23% | 31% | 71% |
|
Return needed for a new high |
257% | 115% | 16% |
Graph of the
GTI's long recovery attempt.
Individual Year-to-Date Returns:
|
ADI |
8% |
GLW |
48% |
QCOM |
20% |
||
|
ALTR |
15% |
IKAN |
32% |
S |
8% |
||
|
AMD |
4% |
INTC |
- 23% |
SIGM |
- 11% |
||
|
BRCM |
39% |
KEYW |
31% |
SMI |
14% |
||
|
BWNG |
120% |
LNOP |
91% |
SYNA |
1% |
||
|
CPHD |
10% |
MVIS |
4% |
TSM |
9% |
||
|
ENER * |
11% |
NETL |
56% |
TXN |
10% |
||
|
EQIX |
41% |
NSM |
14% |
XLNX |
6% |
||
|
FLEX |
6% |
PCMS * |
- 4% |
ZRAN |
35% |
||
|
FNSR |
132% |
PWER |
32% |
(*)
Joined list this year (ENER
2/10, PCMS 4/7).
Return is for period in GTI only.
From the GTI's Origin (1/1/99) to Now:
Weekly Change in the GTI, Last 52 Weeks:
Trailing 3-Month Returns, Last 52 Weeks:
The GTI companies are those "Telecosm
Technologies" in the Gilder Technology
Report whose stock is readily available to
investors. If a company is not traded on the
NYSE, AMEX, or NASDAQ National Market,
it is not in the GTI.
There are now 29 companies in the GTI.
They are listed, with year-to-date returns,
at the bottom of the left hand column.
Advances vs. Declines:
Among the GTI stocks this week, there were
8 up, 21 down, 0 unchanged.
Volatility, Trend, Recovery:
As an indication of volatility, this table shows average weekly change in the GTI
each year:
| Year | Ave Wkly Change |
| 1999 | 4.2% |
| 2000 | 7.7% |
| 2001 | 8.5% |
| 2002 | 6.8% |
| 2003 | 4.3% |
| 2004 | 3.4% |
| 2005 | 2.1% |
| 2006 to date | 2.8% |
As an
indication of trend, this table shows
number of up weeks for the GTI each year:
|
Year |
Number of Up Weeks |
As a % |
| 1999 | 39 of 52 | 75% |
| 2000 | 24 of 52 | 46% |
| 2001 | 22 of 52 | 42% |
| 2002 | 19 of 52 | 37% |
| 2003 | 31 of 53 | 58% |
| 2004 | 28 of 52 | 54% |
| 2005 | 26 of 52 | 50% |
| 2006 to date | 10 of 16 | 63% |