Dear
VMS Ventures, Pancontinental Uranium and
Harvest Gold followers,
I thought you
might find this brief article by Mark Hulbert,
which was in yesterday's National Post in Canada, helpful....if there is
such a thing.... during these trying and unpredictable days.
In our favor,
commodity prices remain strong, all three companies are well financed
and their 2008 work programs are underway.
You can expect
news on Pancon's 2008 program and an
update on Harvest Gold's Rosebud Mine and Bissett, Manitoba
activities very soon and we will continue to provide you a steady stream
of information from VMS' Reed Project Discovery Zone.
We will be in Toronto from February 27 to March 4 and will be
participating in the Casey Summit in Scottsdale from March 25 to March
27.
As always, we
welcome your calls and comments.
History a lesson
in stock volatility
BY MARK HULBERT
Dow Jones
No, it's not just our imaginations: We haven't
experienced this much stock market volatility in years.
Consider the 370-point drop in the Dow Jones
industrial average on Tuesday, which in percentage terms amounts to a 2.9%
loss. That was the 12th day of the past 20 trading sessions in which the
stock market gained or lost at least 1%, and the 29th day of the past 60.
In other words, over the past three months the
stock market has risen or fallen by at least 1% on more or less half the
days. And it has done so 60% the time over the past 20 trading sessions.
To put that much volatility in historical
context, consider that in all of calendar 2005, there were just 27 days in
which the Dow rose or fell by this much - about once every 10 trading days,
on average. In calendar 2006, there were just 25 such days.
The data paint an even starker picture when we
focus on daily percentage changes of at least 2%. There have been four days
with that much volatility over the past 20 trading sessions, and eight over
the past 60 trading days.
In contrast, believe it or not, calendar 2004
did not experience even one day in which the Dow rose or fell by 2%.
Calendar 2005 had just one such day, and calendar 2006 had none.
To be sure, recent volatility appears to be
somewhat less unique if we focus on longer periods than the past few years.
Since 1896, for example, when the Dow was created, there have been more
than 1,800 separate 20 trading day periods in which there were at least 12
sessions in which the Dow rose or fell by 1%. And there have been more than
4,000 separate 60 trading day periods in which the Dow on at least eight occasions
rose or fell by 2%.
The good news, however, is that the kind of
volatility we've experienced in recent weeks more often than not marks a
bottom than a top. Perhaps just a trading bottom as opposed to a major
market bottom, but a bottom nonetheless.
In fact, the last time the Dow exhibited as
much volatility as we've suffered through in recent weeks was in early
2003, which is when the it successfully withstood a retest of the bear
market low of October, 2002. That retest, of course, set the stage for the
five-year bull market that followed.