Commentary: Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday. In the
company of family and other loved ones, we
celebrate and give thanks for the many blessings
of this life, and with very little commercial overlay.
The market was in a celebratory mood too. It
gave us a week to be thankful for, nothing fancy,
just slow and steady gains, with not much red ink
in sight. In the GTI, there were 22 stocks up this
week, and only 6 down.
With five more weeks to go, the GTI is poised for
a good year. A month ago it was down 5.7% for
the year, but now, after four good weeks, it is up
8.5%. Any more rally from here, even if modest,
will put 2005 in the books as a good year.
And if the market celebrates Christmas and New
Year's the way it did Thanksgiving, then so much
the better.
The Market This
Week:
Only
Microvision (MVIS) had a bad week, down
8.2%, while moving in the right direction were
Broadwing (BWNG) up 10.3%, Cepheid (CPHD)
10.0%, Equinix (EQIX) 9.7%, Flextronics (FLEX)
8.1%, LanOptics (LNOP) 7.2%, Power-One
(PWER) 6.1%, Intel (INTC) 6.0%, JDS
Uniphase (JDSU) 6.0%, Wind River Systems
(WIND) 5.0%, and Synaptics (SYNA) 4.9%.
Returns for the
Week:
Gilder
Technology Index (GTI):
+ 2.8%
Nasdaq Composite Index (NSD):
+ 1.6%
S&P 500 Index (S&P):
+ 1.6%
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:
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 | 2.1% |
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 | 23 of 46 | 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.