Earnings season doesn't always light up the sky.
Our first disappointment this week came from
Power-One (PWER), named by Huber & Mills as
the "Cisco of the Powercosm" in the May, 2000,
Digital Power Report. It suffered a 10% haircut
on Thursday and finished the week down 13%.
Then Synaptics (SYNA) fell 25% Friday. It was
its second beating this year. Six months ago
it fell more than 40% in a few days.
These two setbacks, combined with a so-so
week for Gilder stocks in general (10 up and
17 down), caused the GTI to finish in the red.
They turned an OK week into a bit of a stinker.
While all this was going on, I had some power
problems of my own.
Two hours after market close on Wednesday,
we lost electricity for an hour. A tree had fallen
on the wires along the state road that serves
as the western border of our little village (the
Hudson River is the eastern border).
Then an hour after market close on Thursday,
it happened again. This time the falling tree
was right across the lane from our driveway.
We're still out. They "hope" to have us back on
Saturday. We're not high priority: there are only
eight houses affected by this particular outage,
and at least two of them have generators.
Blackouts are quite frequent here, thanks to
lots of old trees and a culture that prizes casual
property maintenance. Forget the "Six Nines"
that Huber and Mills said was required as a
minimum for the telecom and dot-com world.
Most years we don't rate even a Second Nine,
meaning we have power less than 99% of the
time. We're becoming old hands at stuffing the
refrigerator with dried ice and schlepping our
frozen food to friends' freezers.
Why don't we have a generator? Good question.
Every time the power goes out, we say we're
going to get one. But then, when it comes back
on, somehow I lose my sense of urgency. As the
old song goes:
The window she is broken and the rain is coming in,
If someone doesn't fix it I'll be soaking to my skin,
But if we wait a day or two the rain may go away,
And we don't need a window on such a sunny day!
Maņana, Maņana, Maņana is soon enough for me.
But this time I really mean it. The Searses will get
a generator in 2006!
Despite all, the GTI met its deadlines this week,
thanks to my buddy Skip's generous sharing of
his Verizon FTTP connection. It seems about the
same speed as my cable connection, and very
easy to use. I'm glad to have it as an option for
when we finally give up on Cablevision and their
bureaucratic poor service.
Now it's time for my post-GTI cocktail. Can
anyone spare a few ice cubes?
The Market Day by Day 
Everything was fine . . . until the lights went out.
Returns for the Week:
Gilder Technology Index (GTI): - 1.9%
Nasdaq Composite Index (NSD): + 0.2%
S&P 500 Index (S&P): + 0.0%
| Historical Returns |
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 to Date |
1.8% |
0.4% |
1.8% |
| Avg for 8+ yrs |
10.5% |
6.3% |
6.1% |
| Last 52 wks |
23% |
16% |
12% |
Since the high
of 3/06/00 |
- 79% |
- 57% |
- 19% |
Since the low
of 10/09/02 |
261% |
96% |
59% |
Makeup of the GTI:
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.
This past week there were 28 companies in
the GTI.
Advances vs. Declines:
Among the GTI stocks this week, there were
10 up, 17 down, 1 unchanged.
|
The Year to Date
The GTI's Origin (1/1/99) to the Present
The GTI's Weekly Change, Last 52 Weeks
Trailing 3-Month Returns, Last 52 Weeks
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 to Date |
2.2% |
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 to Date |
15 of 30 |
50% |
The GTI fell 94.1% from its March 6, 2000,
high to its October 9, 2002, low. Click here
for the details of its long recovery attempt. |
(address is not clickable)