Still A Tough Market

June 8, 2001
Gary Kaltbaum

Some things in
life boggle the mind. Maria Bartiromo of CNBC
fame has written a book titled: “Use
The News” which explains how the
investing public can separate real business news stories from the clutter that
comes across business channels. Hmmm! Methinks Maria should not be living in a
glass house. I cringe whenever
I hear her say, “This stock will be on fire when it
opens”…only to see it up a few pennies.Â

The markets were set to open nicely today until Juniper’s
(
JNPR |
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PowerRating) announcement…and a
fine announcement it was. Instead of $300-330 million in revenues for the second
quarter, they are going to come in at $200-210
million. Now call me Oliver
Stone, but how did it take Juniper all the way until today to come out with this
number? They were already into the third month of the
quarter. That doesn’t
exactly lend itself to a lot confidence in the
company.

This leads me to the
insider equation of Juniper. From April 17 to April 30, three insiders sold
787,463 shares of stock at prices ranging from $46.81 to $62.76. Not only were
insiders selling after a major drop, but these are their largest sales since the
IPO. I am sure if one asked, “Why the sales?”
— you would hear about
diversification. Don’t buy
it. I have done my own
studies. Very
simply, when
insiders sell at ever-lower prices, it usually means something is
wrong. Just
another great example. One of my mottos is to never, ever own a stock if insiders
are selling at ever-lower prices. Â

The markets are still in whipsawing mode as I have
suggested. I don’t know
about you, but I am getting stopped out about half the time right
now. Don’t get
depressed. I will get depressed for
you. (Just
kidding.)
Being stopped out is not a
crime…it is what keeps you in the game. I have had years where my success rate
was below 50% but the winners completely outshone the
losers. Stopping out lets
you live to fight another day.

Here are a couple of names to show you how tough the market continues to be.

(
FDS |
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PowerRating) — Gee, that lasted a long time.