Weekly Wrap

Wooooo Hooooo.what an election!!! This past week will go down in history as the biggest, "Uncertain" Presidential election ever. (Besides the one in 1876 that took four months to resolve. Don't hold your breath.) In my short-lived life in the stock market, I've learned one thing. The market does not like uncertainty. Short-term investors are in and out of the market on any breaking news. They also try to anticipate what the next news release is going to be and how it will affect their investments.  Now pause for a moment, (okay, you have longer than a moment, they're still counting the ballots), can you even imagine what this past week is doing to the uncertain investor's blood pressure?

The NASDAQ hit a yearly low..down 25% for the year.and 12% of it was this week. 

One word of advice.if you're a Chick*, even a Presidential change will not make you nervous. If other investors are selling because they don't like the uncertainty, then take advantage of their anxiety and buy. Buy more of the stock you love if it's on sale (Chicks dozen #12).

The funniest thing I saw this past week was my CNBC ticker box. It looked different. Along with my S & P 500, the Nasdaq and the Dow Jones movements, it was updating the Florida ballot tallying. It would say, S&P + 5, Dow - 32.45, Nasdaq -13.21 and 96% of Florida counties in..Bush leads by 225. There was such a voter frenzy happening, I almost missed some key market news.

Dell announced earnings. They did meet "The Street's" numbers even though they warned they weren't going to. Even with that, the market still didn't like what Dell had to say.  Investors have been spoiled since the company has consistently grown at about 50% per year. CEO Michael Dell guess-timated that next year they would grow by about 20% (as opposed to this year's projected 27%). He is happy with that for a company of his size. Hmmm.20% sounds pretty good to me, but then again, I would have been confused by that Florida ballot. Who's on third? No wait, who's in that second spot?

Speaking of Spanish speaking regions..AOL is Livin the Vida Loca in Latin America. AOL Latin America reported first quarter earnings this week and they too beat analysts expectations..they only lost $98 million. Yes, that was beating expectations! But.the better news is, they more than doubled their members in one quarter!! They are up over 300,000 users over there! She Bangs.

There was some bangin' at Best Buy this week.The Minnesota based consumer electronic company (click here if you want to read about the Viking's Monday Night football game) lowered its earnings outlook for the second half of the fiscal year, blaming the softening economy and increasing competition for driving promotional costs higher, their shares fell 38%. Bummer all the around in Minnesota this week.

Shares of Disney also fell this week, (like by 15% and are down 25% since early October), on news that their first quarter earnings will have slowed. Due to NBC holding the Olympics and delaying a lot of their season premieres, coupled with "Who Wants to Be Regis" getting lower ratings.their ad revenues for the quarter will be weaker.

Speaking of week-er.what a one we had. I can hardly wait to be glued to my television for the next week-er to see who the Decision 2000 is going to go to. (Week-er is not really a word, but after this last one, Buch-an-en-derstand.)

*Synonymous with long-term-buy-and-holder and believes in the companies she owns.

Chick Karin

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