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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John F. Dowd who wrote (38261)	2/21/2000 9:33:00 PM
From: John F. Dowd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

To All: Another 23,000 coming up. And whoever heard of these guys? News To print this story February 21, 2000 19:54 UK's Capita in schools hook-up with Microsoft --FT LONDON, Feb 22 (Reuters) - British business outsourcing and support services firm Capita Group Plc is expected on Tuesday to announce an alliance with Microsoft to develop e-business services for schools, the Financial Times reported. Under the link-up, Capita will encourage the 23,000 British schools that use its administrative system to use Microsoft's Windows 2000 as an operating platform, the FT said on Tuesday. In return, Mircrosoft is expected to help Capital develop an education website, called education.uk.com, to be launched this year. The website will aim to give schools online access to management systems and staff recruitment, as well as allowing parents to monitor the progress of their children, the FT said. Shares in Capita closed down 1.29 percent at 1145 pence on Monday JFD

To: John F. Dowd who wrote (38261)	2/22/2000 4:18:00 AM
From: Dinesh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

John I don't understand where this conversation is leading to now, or what is the purpose of this all. YES, the Discount Rate is lower than the target Fed Funds rate. It usually is. The Funds Rate is market driven and fluctuates a ton, but the Fed indicates its target by jacking up (or down) the Discount Rate. You can see it daily in WSJ or Barrons or a lot of other places. The Fed doesn't fix the Funds Rate. Banks transact on Funds Rate. Discount Rate applies when a bank can't find reserves on the market. The Fed grants the loan but it also maintains an book titled "We Hate You", or "We Think You Are A Risky Business" or something like that -- banks don't want their name in that book. Particularly, if the Fed thinks the bank is arbitraging the Discount v/s Funds rates. The intent, once again, is never to rake in more from the banks, but only to make it costlier for the banks to support their loans portfolio. Thereby impacting the rates banks charge their customers. It's one way to control the total debt levels. Does it always work this way ? Who knows -- people have written a million books on the efficacy of this model. There are other methods too. Fed can change the margin requirements to curb or facilitate borrowing against stocks; the reserves requirements to throttle the supply of loans. Discount rate is usually to raise or lower the cost of the loans. I bet there are 63,000 other methods too. There are some very good books out there that discuss how money markets work. Stignum (sp?) is a good place. You can search on infoseek or wherever. Regards Dinesh