Linda, I was busy moving home. My new no-name self-assembled desktop (all latest and greatest components, of course) was acting up. I read what Mact wrote and he has made good/important points.
Employment number is bad by Japanese standard. The trend is down and has been for a while. I expect that the market has fully accounted for the trend already. 9984 is one of Japan's new opportunities. I expect 9984 to go up/down with Japanese market, but I also think 9984 has chance to go up against a down Japan market. I do not really expect Tokyo market to 'crash' or correct in a major way, as it has been doing that for 10 years already.
The markets out here has a dynamic and rationale to its own, but now are tied to the US anchor by way of interest rate, exchange rate and sentiment. This will continue to be so, unless US slips up (Asia will probably initially follow and slip as well) and $ leaves US as a result.
The big question is "is recession and/or inflation dead?" or, put it another way "are the productivity gains real to the extent that inflation is dead?".
I am guarded on this question, as I do not believe history ended in 1992. My hedge is a position in NEM and my continuing issuance of puts. I have een issuing puts on NEM since November of last year and only got putted once in about 5 tries.
On the issue of pressure on 9984 (for any number of reasons - inflation, deflation, exchange rate wobble, etc). I recently added 7% at Yen 31k. I intend to add more if we hit a major speed bump. I believe, I believed early (Nov 98), and therefore I do not get concerned on the down days. As I said in a very early posting, my retirement depends on Son, Bill Gates and Zhu Rong Ji. |
