And So It Goes

For those who
weren’t around in ’73-’74
,
this is just par for the course.

An extended, multimonth decline
chock-full of headfakes and stops ‘n starts, with volume failing to pick up
dramatically.

Tuesday included yet another day of
institutional selling, though curiously, volume didn’t soar as one would want.

Apparently, there is less fear around
than might be expected.

In the bells, Corning
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experienced distribution for the third time in five days, which is just what you
don’t want to see from one of the better-acting benchmarks.

Oracle
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,
another important marquee, is doing its best to stave off a test of 60 hit last
week.

But Oracle’s behavior at
this point is largely academic.

Its damage has been done.

As for EMC, the
top-quality bell for some time, its own perch appears increasingly precarious by
the day, given what’s going on all around it.

Among the names, Broadcom
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completed a mid-sized head-and-shoulders top.

Applied Micro
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rifled right
through its 50-day on megavolume.

IDEC
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stood out like a sore
thumb amid the mess…it’s the best actor in the bios.

Myriad
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is another bio
that’s keeping itself together pretty well.

Mercury
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, which had held up
quite well of late, broke down below its recent pivot on volume, losing 14%.

The perceived quality of a stock, like
art, is in the eye of the beholder.

In any correction/pullback/bear
market, the top quality goes last.

It doesn’t matter whether you agree
with what the market deems "quality."

In this game, if the institutions
believe something is a Rembrandt, so must you.

And so a gaggle of names, in vogue
just a couple of short weeks ago, have been rendered by the institutions to be
of "less-than-desirable" quality.

At least at this point in the cycle.

These have been taken out behind the
woodshed for 40% shellackings; McData
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is one example.

And so it goes.