A PEBBLE BEGINS ROLLING?:

Markets Rally, Break Losing Streak (Jerry Knight, October 11, 2002, Washington Post)

Wall Street finally broke its six week losing streak today, shrugging off reports that retail sales are falling and consumer confidence has plunged to a nine-year low.

The official excuses for today's rally were General Electric's report that its third quarter profits grew 25 percent to $4.1 billion and a projection that business is getting better at International Business Machines Corp.

Both those big blue chip stocks have lost close to half their value this year prompting many investors to proclaim them bargains. Today those true believers we joined by buyers who lifted both stocks and with them the Dow Jones industrial average. [...]

Even without today's big gains the indexes were ahead for the week and with them the markets were on their way to their best week since early August--just before the six-week slide began.

Investors have been ripe for a rally and today they seemed determined to have one even if there were plenty of excuses for the market to move in the opposite direction.

It seems especially unlikely to happen in October, of all months, but if the market were to post a series of winning weeks as we head in to the election, it would bode very well for the GOP, removing the Democrats last issue.
Posted by Orrin Judd at October 11, 2002 9:32 PM