11.   Both stocks perform best in economic expansions.

12.   But even if January is ignored, stocks have still performed significantly better in the colder months than in the May-October period.

13.   But stocks have performed dismally, and a presidential commission just concluded that benefit cuts may be necessary to avoid insolvency.

14.   Companies that are mainstays of the computer-based new economy have continued to report flat sales and profits, and their stocks have performed accordingly.

15.   Conversely, the Nasdaq composite often paints a far too pessimistic picture when the dominant stocks perform poorly, as was seen over the past month.

16.   Consumer shares continued to outperform shares of more economically sensitive companies as investors speculated that such stocks will perform relatively better in a slow-growth economy.

17.   Consumer stocks performed less poorly than cyclicals today.

18.   Despite such withdrawals, technology stocks are performing far better than they did last summer, when they were hammered during a summer selloff.

19.   Drug stocks perform well when the economy slows, since drug sales do not fluctuate with economic ups and downs.

20.   During that period we had a broad market, when the small- and mid-caps performed reasonably well and the so-called value stocks were performing better.