"Trading Ranges"

[sbyers@wirb.com]

Today's (4/21/03) WSJ has, on page C1, a graph of the Dow
Jones performance for some months. The accompanying article
is about Trading Ranges. When I look at the chart, it seems
ready to be a control chart, yet there is no effort at
statistical analysis in the article or on the chart. Am I 
missing something? 

I think a see a relatively stable process. The second head-
line says "Stocks Become Mired Within Narrow Band and Can't
Get Out." How about that? Further, "a trading range is
a band in which stocks sometimes get stuck, and from which
they have trouble breaking out. Investors who learned about
stocks in the 1990s didn't meet up with many trading ranges;
stocks rarely got stuck and mostly went up." Now, is that
the kind of helpful analysis one would expect from the WSJ?
It really sounds like the shoe manufacturer we all know
about, who replied to an inquiry about variation in the
number of defects, "Some days are better than others."

In the article, some bullish analysts warn "that, [even] if
stocks put in sharp gains now, they may have trouble 
hanging on to them."

As written, the article is an uninformative drive through
all too familiar terrain while gazing in the rear view
mirror. I think it could have been much more interesting.
Maybe it will show up on Tufte's web page as one of his 
"graphs of the day." And I hope Ken Macur might comment.

Regards,

Steven Byers
Olympia, WA

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