Weekly Wrap

If you read last Friday's Chicks Weekly Wrap, you know how the market feels about uncertainty. It's no surprise that this week had "BLAH" written all over it. Could we get this Presidential thing over with? Like today?? If there is one more press conference, one more hand count, or one more prediction, I'm going to have to schedule my own Oral Argument. Topic being: Next time can we all just raise our hands?

While Chicks Megan and Cheryl were glued to their televisions memorizing Florida counties, Chicks Jeanette and Julie enjoyed four days at the Circle Z Ranch. They were the Annie Oakley Chicks of the mountain. They had so much fun, that they are pitching it for the next Chicks get-together. But answer me this, my mom is 60-something... shouldn't she be a little sore? I didn't inherit those jeans. I mean, genes.

Speaking of genes, I am going to track the biotechnology industry and see if there are any worthy companies of becoming a Chick stock. The Chicks are furiously researching stocks for our next buy on our message board. If anything, all the bio-techs went on sale this week. There was an article in both Barrons and Fortune, warning investors that the biotech industry might be the next dot-com risk. People are pulling out of the internet stocks and investing in the bio-techs without really understanding them. This is not Chicky. But I don't need to tell you that. The whole industry was down 8% this past week.

If you have been reading the past five days of the Chicks Eye View, we covered websites. Three dot-coms closed its doors this week and two really cut back. Garden.com, Mothernature.com and Pets.com went to dot-com heaven, and TheStreet.com and Priceline.com need some serious prayers if they are going to make it out of purgatory.

Bell South, the 3rd largest telephone company in the U.S. warned of lower earnings for 2001. They are going to incur more cost as they expand into the Internet business and wireless. Investors took this as bad news, and it brought the telecommunications industry down. But as a long-term-buy-and-holder, I see the company worth a second look. Expansion is good. If you don't spend some cashola, how else are you expected to grow? Maybe we should vote on it.

My early morning jolt provider, Starbucks (SBUX) reported their earnings this week, and the sweet aroma could be smelled across the country. They were up 35% from last year. Can you say Grande? They also made an announcement that they would be cutting back on all of their Internet involvement. For more on Starbucks, check out my girlfriend Lou Ann's article over at the Motley Fool. Also, look out for Chick Cheryl's Chicks Dozen on Starbucks next week, as it is her stock to research for our next buy December 4th.

Also reporting right on the money this week were, Target, Kohl's and Wal-Mart. Way to go large department store sector!! It's nice to know that someone is still shopping.

For a look at the best and worst industries of the past week, take a look at one of my favorite sites BigCharts.com. If you play around with it, you can find some real bargains.

Which is just about the only way we can look at the market these days.as a pre-Thanksgiving Day sale. Get out your calculators and start adding. And then, after you do that, do it again by hand. I'm sure after some legal wrangling; we can find someone to certify it.

Chick Karin

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