With six successive monthly gains from the end of July 2006 to the end of January 2007, the R-100 has picked up by 22.7%. Not bad for a bunch of ICT basket cases.

January 2007 saw a 3.6% rise globally, the R-100 closing at 1269.37 up from 1225.73 at the turn of the year. THis makes it the biggest rise for a trading month since November 2006 and a fifth straight all-time high.

Seasonal adjustments saw Lucent and BellSouth de-listed and dropped from the R-100, replaced by Alltel and Symantec. The former's debut was average; the latter’s not quite as good.

For January 2007, EMEA stocks climbed 3.02% with 30 gainers and nine decliners (plus one unchanged). A turbulent Asia-Pacific region added 2.96% growth despite only nine companies in advance and 11 in decline for the month of January.

Stocks in the Americas showed 25 ahead and 15 behind: the net result was a 1.5% gain over year-end 2006. HP, Intel, Microsoft, Google and Microsoft provided a fair percentage of the go-forward.

Early analyst indications point to investor irascibility with tech stocks just now. No real sign of that here... yet.
Jim Chalmers