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To: John Hunt who wrote (46395)	12/30/1999 7:52:00 AM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 116997

Iowa Pre Y2K Computer Glitch - (STATEWIDE) -- A state snafu has thousands of state employees seeing dollar signs. The state employees only wish they received the salaries that were printed in the new edition of the state salary book. The 1999 edition lists higher salaries for about 24-thousand workers than they received last year. State officials say the mishap is a computer error. When the list for about 50 state agencies was created, the computer added five pay periods to fiscal 1999 salaries. dailynews.yahoo.com

To: John Hunt who wrote (46395)	12/30/1999 7:55:00 AM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 116997

Thursday December 30 4:25 AM ET Sprint May Not Be Y2K Ready - (ORLANDO) -- The Sprint Corporation in Central Florida may be without workers this New Year's holiday weekend. At a time when callers are expected to jam phone lines and company employees are on high alert for Y2K related glitches. The Communications Workers of America who represent the area's 633 Sprint employees have set a strike deadline of midnight tonight after negotiations between with the management broke down late yesterday. Union negotiators walked away from the bargaining table after Sprint representatives made their latest contract offer. The two sides are bickering over job security issues. CWA negotiators representing 35-hundred Sprint employees in Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana and Oregon are also threatening to strike. dailynews.yahoo.com

To: John Hunt who wrote (46395)	12/30/1999 11:11:00 AM
From: Alex	Respond to of 116997

Old Father Greenspan heralds New Year rush By BRIAN HALE Tuesday 28 December 1999 Get in the queue now to see Father Time crush Father Christmas - Greenspan's global sharemarket bubble on the biggest screen in the known galaxy. Coming live to you from Nasdaq's Times Square building in New York on the world's largest LED video display, covering an area of 36metres by 27 metres - a total area of 3272 square metres. The date of the bubble bursting is uncertain, although few think it will be long coming after the Christmas Eve dash to new records by America's three most-watched sharemarket indices. As usual, the fate of the sharemarket overall was not reflected in the Nasdaq Composite's break through 4000 points just seven weeks after breaking 3000. Nor was there any connection between the bulk of the market and the new records set by the SP 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The trading volume in declining stocks was much the same as the volume in advancing stocks all week, and the market internals stayed dreadful, with the number of share prices falling to new lows, far exceeding the few reaching highs. There's nothing new in that, it's been the story for most of this year - the technology, Internet and telecommunications stocks booming, the rest busting. But what did seem new was the extent of the frenzy and panic buying that followed Federal Reserve committee's decision to stick with a neutral bias as well as do nothing with interest rates. Until this year, the week before Christmas was a time for quiet, thinly traded sharemarkets, not the huge and index record-setting sessions with wild volatility that have marked the end of 1999. This time around, Father Greenspan switched on the green light for an unprecedented shopping spree for stocks and a market crush that rivalled the throngs lugging their bags up Fifth Avenue. The main bubble stocks generally led while the lesser lights did their usual thing - alternately fading then catching alight in fires often started by day-trading arsonists that left other investors struggling to get set. The word "investor" is used loosely. This bubble has as much to do with investment as putting chips on a roulette wheel's number 17 or punting that the blackjack dealer isn't about to turn over an ace. Nor does it have anything to do with the separate business of what is happening with the Internet, its growth, development or whatever. Most Internet and tech companies are using the bubble frenzy to subsidise their loss-making ventures and enrich their staff, but the fact that they can benefit from has not prompted that market frenzy. Deutsche Bank's chief economist, Ed Yardeni, says that in recent meetings with fund managers around the world, he found a remarkable consensus that the United States market was experiencing a classic speculative bubble. "So what are they doing?" asks Mr Yardeni. "Buying more of the tech stocks that they believe are grossly overvalued." They think they have no choice and "they've been forced to trash their valuation disciplines and play the momentum game". "One previously sensible investment man says `forget valuation, earnings, fundamentals, market share and competition ... just buy any stock that goes up $US30 ($A47) or more a day." And so it goes. Last week's Internet stock du jour was the service provider (ISP) Juno Online Services, whose shares more than doubled in price to $US62 in one day after it decided to offer full Internet access for free. Most share prices would plunge if their issuers decided to offer products or services for free, but Juno's decision to compete with other free ISPs such as NetZero and AltaVista sparked turnover of 22million shares, more than 68 times daily average volume, and a thousand postings on message boards. It's hard to even find an Internet stock analyst who thinks there is any proof that the free ISP business model will work in the US - not that this stops the same analysts doubling their price targets. Then again, most have always had "buys" on Juno, which lost $US40 million - $US1.39 a share - on revenue of $US34 million in the first nine months of the year and now is expected to lose $3.83 a share in 2000. Other analysts think this business model has problems because the cost of attracting customers will increase substantially while the free ISPs will strike problems increasing advertising rates because of the competition. It's the disconnects not just the divergences that prompt seasoned market observers to insist that we're seeing a mania in US tech stocks and that it inevitably will be followed by a serious cyclical shakeout. Only Father Time knows when that will be but lots of people are picking January or February. theage.com.au