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Strategies & Market Trends : Cents and Sensibility - Kimberly and Friends' Consortium -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KevinMark who wrote (68328)	1/27/2000 7:10:00 PM
From: johnsto1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108040

JMAR I am guessing JMAR will make the high-end custom chips for optical routers/switches that are really high in demand now. A lot of optical start-ups can use custom silion chips. Here are some interesting Philips links: www-eu2.semiconductors.com www-eu2.semiconductors.com www-eu2.semiconductors.com

To: KevinMark who wrote (68328)	1/27/2000 7:10:00 PM
From: EtTuBrute	Respond to of 108040

EAST: Europe on line trading: 01/25/2000 Online Investing Poised For Revolution In Europe By Steven Bonisteel, Amsterdam, Holland The number of online stock trading accounts held by investors in Europe will jump dramatically to 14 million in 2004 from just 1.3 million today, according to a report released today by the Netherlands office of Forrester Research]. The Forrester researchers say those numbers mean that brokers will have to rethink their strategies as online investing goes increasingly mainstream, and will have to offer attractive value- added services or risk losing customers to the lowest-priced providers. Such services could include personalized financial advice, the report says. "Europe's rich social programs have traditionally limited consumers' appetite for investment," said Carsten Schmidt, an associate analyst in European Internet Commerce Research for Forrester. "Only 18 percent of Europeans directly own stocks, compared with 40 percent in the US. But this environment is undergoing fundamental change as consumers seek greater control over their assets. "While governments are pushing the population toward individual investing, record market performance is pulling investors in," Schmidt said. The Forrester report, entitled "Online Trading Skyrockets In Europe," says Germany will lead the way in Europe with its growing online population and aggressive online investing services being provided by brokerages and banks. Germany tallies 550,000 trading accounts today, a number the report says will grow to 3.5 million by 2004. Forrester says the next-most developed online trading market is in the Nordic countries, where 30 percent of consumers own stocks and 10 percent already trade online. The number of online accounts in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden will reach 3.1 million by 2004, the report says. Forrester says it expects that it will take four years for the UK and France to begin narrowing Germany's lead. It says "complicated pricing structures and thin content" are barriers in the UK, while France is still hobbled by the out-of-date Minitel network of France Telecom, from which many users have been slow to wean. But the report says there are many forces encouraging an online investing boom in Europe. For example, it cites upgraded pension savings regulations in the Netherlands as an example of governments enticing citizens to invest more of their own money. Meanwhile, Forrester says, the privatization of many national firms is putting stocks into the hands of consumers. It says privatization in the UK caused stock ownership to surge nearly 400 percent in the country alone. In response, European financial firms must develop brokerage services with a focus on the Internet, Forrester says. "The future for online brokerages in Europe looks bright, but there are clouds on the horizon," Schmidt said. "A price war is looming that will push prices below 10 Euros a trade and lead to a market shakeout by 2002. To survive, brokers need to attract mainstream investors with personalized advice, customer education, and easy-to-use analytical tools. But few brokers are preparing to meet these needs." Reported by Newsbytes.com