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To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (44053)	10/27/1999 3:24:00 PM
From: Alex	Respond to of 117044

Let the good times roll.................. Online hedge service in the offing By EDMUND TEE A SINGAPORE company is planning to set up an online service that will let people study stock market trends and place bets on the performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and some other stock indices. Mr Mark Halley, the director of Singapore-registered Marketplay, said investors could use this to hedge against the actual performance of their stocks. This is how he said it would work: If the price of their stocks in a particular market falls, they can offset losses by using their credit cards to place bets on the fall of the market index. He said: "It's going to be a world first. No one else in the world is doing this yet." One of Britain's largest bookmakers, Mr Victor Chandler, has announced that he would expand his business to include punting on major stock market indices. But only from January onwards. Mr Halley, a New Zealander in his 40s who has run a web-based business here for eight years, says he expects to start within weeks. One would pick his hedge depending on how much an index is expected to rise or fall, he said. The more it rises or falls, the more costly it would be to hedge, and the higher the rewards. When asked if this wouldn't be construed as gambling, he conceded that ordinary people may think so: "The intention is to provide a hedge facility for traders, but yes, it does work like a form of betting." Though online trading of stocks is not meant to be for gambling, he said that is what many do when they speculate. His Internet market service will run round-the-clock eventually, and will be targeted mainly at traders in the United States. But he was quick to add that he would exclude Asian market indices, particularly that of the Stock Exchange of Singapore. He said: "I expect to draw a lot of money into Singapore from this, and a significant part of the profits will go towards the tax authorities here." Mr Halley said that he had not been given an official nod to start his service. But nor has any government agency he has checked with, including the police, the Singapore Broadcasting Authority, and the Attorney-General's Chambers, told him not to start. Said a lawyer familiar with Mr Halley's proposal: "He's been very careful not to step on anyone's toes, and not to cross any lines, but the trouble is, the lines in this instance are very unclear. "It would be interesting to see what happens." straitstimes.asia1.com

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (44053)	10/27/1999 3:33:00 PM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 117044

,,what is your bet that the government statistics on inflation won't reflect the higher costs of insurance rates>> even though some insurance is reqd by law.

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (44053)	10/27/1999 4:19:00 PM
From: Tunica Albuginea	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 117044

Bobby Yellin, Government inflation stats most certainly will not reflect higher insurance rates. I n essence the higher bond yield is pointing to all the excess dollars printed and continued to be printed to pay for Bill and Hillary's Great Society. With so many Social Engineers in Guv's Stats Dept. it is a miracle we are getting any meaningful data at all. These guys will continue to try and get the facts and data to fit into their concept of "what the correct picture ought to look like in all's well in Government run fairy land ", than have opinion be a result of facts and data, TA . . . . Message #44053 from Bobby Yellin at Oct 27 1999 2:05PM what is your bet that the government statistics on inflation won't reflect the higher costs of insurance rates :-)

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (44053)	10/30/1999 12:32:00 AM
From: Tunica Albuginea	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 117044

Bobby Yellin, Re: you said : " what is your bet that the government statistics on inflation won't reflect the higher costs of insurance rates :-) Here is a nice article from John Crudele at the New York Post on the ECI report that just came out: nypostonline.com 10/29/99 WAS THE EMPLOYMENT REPORT LEAKED? By JOHN CRUDELE WATCHING the stock market react to any release from the Labor Department is a lot like watching pro wrestling. There's a lot of action, but in the end you know it's all phony. So sit back, traders, and get ready to be body slammed by inflation in the weeks ahead - especially the people who seemed to know ahead of time. Wall Street became orgasmic yesterday because the department's labor cost index rose 0.8 percent for the three months ended Sept. 30 and not the 0.9 percent increase that traders expected. The index had been up a troublesome 1.1 percent in the second quarter. That one-tenth of 1 percent difference between "reality" and expectations was deemed to be worth a 227.64-point gain yesterday in the Dow. And it also gave the bond market one of its best lifts in months, sending interest rates sharply lower. I put the word "reality" in quotation marks because there is the reality that you and I know and the reality that Washington tries to foist on the public. The biggest foisters of them all are at the Labor Department, where shoddy surveying methods, political arm twisting and plain old-fashion spin control have made the millions it spends annually on economic statistics one of the biggest wastes of taxpayers' money. Let me start by saying that the less-than-expected gain in the employment cost index will not sway the Federal Reserve in deciding whether or not to raise interest rates next month. In fact, the stock market's urgent need to rise on such spurious numbers will make Alan Greenspan more inclined to boost rates in his fight against asset inflation - a.k.a. the stock market bubble. But let's look at yesterday's employment cost index. In the first place, the real ECI released yesterday by Labor was actually up 0.847 percent from the last quarter. In other words, just another 0.003 percent would have rounded off to precisely the 0.9 percent that Wall Street was expecting. Even if Greenspan cared about this number, do you really think a difference of only 0.003 percent is going to dictate monetary policy? There are also problems with the way the ECI is gathered. The employment cost number is tallied from the same type of survey that produces the notoriously inaccurate job growth figures each month. As I've been saying, the monthly job numbers include estimates for companies that Labor couldn't reach or firms that wouldn't cooperate. And being a government agency beholden to politicians for financing, do you really believe Labor will ever plug in a pessimistic guestimate for these non-cooperators? But Wall Street cares about the ECI. It cares so much, in fact, that yesterday's number appears to have been leaked to traders a day early. Late Wednesday afternoon, as both the stock and bond markets were rallying, word was getting around that the ECI would come in lower than Wall Street expected. It's amazing how lucky some traders get. In fact, the rumor that somebody got inside information was so widespread that the Labor Department - which has accidentally leaked data prematurely on its website in the past - was forced to put out a press statement. Reuters quoted the Labor Department as denying that the ECI was issued ahead of schedule. "This is highly unlikely given the safeguards we now have in place," a spokesman was quoted as saying. Interesting, but not enough. Maybe the ECI wasn't accidentally put on the website early or officially released prematurely. But what about a good old-fashioned word-of-mouth leak from someone with access to the data to someone who can make a buck from inside information? Which someone? Maybe the investment house that placed an order for 2,500 bond futures contracts well ahead of the 8:30 a.m. ECI release yesterday and made itself a ton of money. Is there a labor cost number that the markets should be watching? Yep. Watch for the what's called the "insured unemployment figure," which comes out every Thursday. That's people who are out of work and eligible for jobless insurance. The figure is so low that it's troubling inflation watchers, including the Fed. And keep an eye on the growth rate of total employment that comes from the more-accurate household survey done by the Labor Department. It too is pointing to inflationary wage increases ahead. Message #44053 from Bobby Yellin at Oct 27 1999 2:05PM what is your bet that the government statistics on inflation won't reflect the higher costs of insurance rates :-)