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It is a traditional turn in an intermediate-term rally, such as the one begun last August, that as the rally wanes the more speculative issues come to the fore. Sure enough that is exactly what happened in the four-week period shown on this page -- mid-January through mid-February. While the Dow Jones Industrials actually declined a couple of percentage points, and the S&P 400 and the American Stock Exchange Index ended unchanged, the fast-growth, chancier indexes came through with resounding gains. Our proprietary INC. Index chalked up a healthy eight points, tying Hambrecht & Quist with its grand array of high-flying high-tech stocks, and exceeding NASDAQ's over-the-counter mix by a couple of points.

The question is, did the mid-winter speculative spurt merely mark the waning phases of the bull market's first turn upward? Or did the realization take hold, as the market forged into historically new ground, that if indeed business was to recover and go on to sparkle, as suggested by the robustness of the rally, it would be led by such emerging companies as NASDAQ, H&Q, and INC. embrace?

One answer is implied by the continued remarkable strength in the new-issues sector. In one month alone, December-January, INC.'s $100 investment in each new issue appreciated a giddy 45% -- substantially more than the 40% increment chalked up by the DJI in six months. Many of these issues are spoken for by institutions and large individual investors, who obviously believe in the growing power of the small businesses that are being publicly launched.

What is more, this month's list of new issues suggests that you don't have to be on the good side of a "hot-issue" broker to participate in IPO action. Of the 13 issues that came out in January very few went at hefty premiums, which suggests that, for the most part, the gains in IPOs take place after the issue is launched. Unlike the earlier days of Apple Computer and Genentech, whose first aftermarket trades were marked up beyond the bounds of rationality, recent new issues haven't been immediately bid up out of buying range. Thus the tactic of blind-shopping in the IPO market remains -- as of early spring, anyway -- the obvious play in a stock market that gives every sign of wanting to go up for a long time.

If that prospect seems a bit nerve-racking in the light of what still is a stalled economy at best, readers may recall earlier observations in this space that the fiscal strength and innovative products of emerging growth companies can carry the day despite the fiscal effluent of high interest rates and recession. They may even carry the decade.