Como se combate o populismo? "Com eleições", responde Fukuyama

[Ulisses Pereira]

"QQQQ Playbook Now Out of Tune"

By James J. Cramer
RealMoney.com Columnist
1/19/2005 8:33 AM EST


"New pattern? The market doesn't trade monolithically off earnings reports? We don't get the kind of group move up or down that we have been getting for the last few years depending on a couple of reports? We are now actually thinking before we buy the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq 100 Unit Trust (QQQQ:Nasdaq - commentary - research)?

For as long as we've had the QQQQs, we have seen the "market" trade up or down in the a.m. depending upon a handful of earnings reports. You get a great number from Juniper (JNPR:Nasdaq - commentary - research), and the market opens up. You get a bad number from Intel (INTC:Nasdaq - commentary - research), and the market opens down. Of course, the good number/bad number game would only be keying on a tech stock, and the tech stocks controlled the QQQQs, which, in return, heavily influenced the S&P.

But in the tortured and torturous decline of tech, we have seen a decreased linkage. First, the QQQQs are no longer a proxy for tech. They are more than just tech. Second, tech is no longer as dominant in the S&P. Third, "tech" itself has been fractured into the GERQY stocks (like Google (GOOG:Nasdaq - commentary - research), eBay (EBAY:Nasdaq - commentary - research), Research In Motion (RIMM:Nasdaq - commentary - research), Qualcomm (QCOM:Nasdaq - commentary - research) and Yahoo! (YHOO:Nasdaq - commentary - research)) and old tech.

Finally, other than in the television media, there is no more tech obsession left. The hedge funds that are largely tech have become much less of a factor given either their poor performance, and therefore declining assets, or their recognition (at last?) that the whole take on the QQQQs game doesn't work anymore.

Whatever it is, I think that the days of saying "Why isn't the market going up on this bit of good news from Juniper?" may at last be past us. With it, though, should come some sobering reconsideration of how we think about "the tape." The notion, for example, that the "key" is Intel or Cisco (CSCO:Nasdaq - commentary - research) or Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq - commentary - research) may have become quaint, with all overtones of dismissal intended. If we wait for Intel, we miss Whole Foods (WFMI:Nasdaq - commentary - research). If we wait for Cisco, we miss F5 Networks (FFIV:Nasdaq - commentary - research). If we wait for Microsoft, we miss Tibco (TIBX:Nasdaq - commentary - research).

The pattern had been so ingrained that it's hard to want to let go of it, especially during earnings season, when we had come to love the notion of "Yahoo!'s good, I guess we're off to the races." Now, it's "Yahoo!'s good -- so what?"

Maybe that's how it should have always been. Maybe it will go back to the way it was. But right now, those using the QQQQ playbook haven't made a dime in a while, and I don't expect them to make one anytime soon. "

(in www.realmoney.com)