Market Summary

After a week of four straight days of gains, there was some minor profit taking on Friday amongst the large caps, but tech. stocks continued to rise and the NASDAQ posted its 6th straight day of gains on Friday. For the week, the DJI gained 3.27%, the NASDAQ gained 3.52% and the S&P 500 rose 3.05%. This was also the 3rd consecutive week of gains for the NASDAQ which has recorded 7 accumulation days since starting the current rally on April 29, compared to just 2 distribution days.

The primary motivation for the improvement in market performance this week seems to be the decline in oil prices, which fell to below $47 per barrel, almost 20% lower than the high of over $58 reached in early April. Additionally, inflation seems to be in check, which contributed to improving investor sentiment.

Breakouts

The number of successful breakouts this week more than doubled to 55. Wednesday saw a near record of 28 breakouts being confirmed. A distinct change in the pattern of breakouts was noticed. The gains were spread more evenly with only a small number of breakouts exceeding the 5% limit, whereas recently we have seen fewer breakouts, some of which make impressive gains.This indicates the institutions are spreading their net more widely and purchasing baskets of stocks rather than being so highly selective. This is good news, because it improves the chances of picking a winner, confirming the old adage that a rising tide lifts all boats. It also means there are a lot of successful breakouts that are within 5% of their pivot points. Pull backs to below the pivot were also few (just 10) and none lost more than 1.6%.

Breakdowns

There were no breakdowns this week.

Industry Analysis

Healthcare-Hospitals continued to be the top performing industry as measured by our technical criteria. The Healthcare sector produced the most breakouts with 8 this week, followed by Banks with 6 breakouts and RealEstate/REIT with 5. With the real estate sector continuing to perform well, we saw Building-Painting Products make the biggest 1 week gains in our industry rankings, moving up 61 places to 50 out of 192.

Personal Watchlists

This week we are introducing an innovation which allows you to define a Personal Watch List (PWL) and only receive alerts on stocks on that list, if you choose to do so. This is being made available initially only on CwHWatch but will be extended to our other watchlists after a trial period in which we have received subscriber feed back.

To accommodate this innovation we have restructured the CwHWatch display as shown here. The new areas are indicated by numbers 1 - 4 and are described below.

1. These are the filter controls that you are already familiar with. They work as previously but have been relocated to accommodate the other new features.

2. This new column allows you to select individual stocks in the display.

3. These buttons allow you to clear or save your Personal Watchlist.

4. This area allows you to define how you want alerts to be sent to you. You can receive alerts limited to stocks on your PWL, limited to stocks that meet your filter criteria, or all stocks.

Creating a Personal Watch List

To create a PWL, check the box in the PW/L column next to a stock that you want to place on your PWL. The Personal Watchlist area of the display will show that you have modified your PWL but that it is not saved.

After selecting all the stocks you want on your PWL, click the Save button and the Personal Watch area will respond that the PWL was saved.

A stock can be removed from the list by clicking a checked box, or the whole list can be cleared by clicking the clear button.

Once a stock is added to your PWL it will stay there until it either moves off the list or you remove it from your PWL.

Setting Alert Preferences

Alert Preferences apply to email alerts and allow you to receive all alerts, only alerts that meet your filter criteria, or only alerts that correspond to stocks on your Personal Watch List (PWL).

Select the option you prefer and click save.

These new features are available now and will apply to email alerts issued beginning Monday, May 23, 2005. Your existing filters and alert preferences will be unchanged if you do not take advantage of the new PWL feature.

We have also modified the behavior of the display so that the Fundamental and Technical Indicators appear where the Help information used to be. Clicking the 'Help; tab now brings the help page up in a pop-up.