RD:
<<<So, I don't see us making a bottom for while, and after we do, I'm not convinced that the stock market is going to be an attractive place to park funds. There's too much of a Humpty-Dumpty feel to what we've been through with the euphoria of NAZ 5100 and the subsequent headache of readjustment to reality. >>>
I would equate the present downturn more to the Japanese problem of 1990 than to 1987 or 1929.
Nikkee index down from 40K and still dropping. Average Japanese housewife worth 1/2 mm( in stock)-expert
stock pickers. Buying land in Hawaii and Calif, so much they were trying to pass a law against it.
Here many coal and oil producers have hedged their output in the past, selling maybe 75 % at a fixed prices out to 2003. So some fertilizer and electric producers are getting a real bargain, but wait until they pay three times
what they do today for hydrocarbons, and the public gets new billings. .How much more can farmers afford for fertilizer made from natural gas?
Inflation and more unemployment leaves far less left over for investment.
Trying to properly fine-tune an economy with bank rate changes ,where oil is once $10/barrel and then goes to over $30 a barrel, is doomed to failure. What a problem for the airlines, shippers, utilities,metals, and plastics mnfgrs.
No wonder the markets are confused, with more bad news in the future and some kind of inflation
Sig |
