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Technology Stocks : InfoSpace (INSP): Where GNET went! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (17372)	3/7/2000 1:35:00 AM
From: KLP	Respond to of 28311

Another interesting take on the meeting today ...from London Financial Times again....SEC warns of Market Risks IMO---Think it's "interesting" that none of them talked about oil prices raises causing inflation! Must not be PC... KLP Maybe the 17373 will be good luck for all of us! news.ft.com SEC warns on market risks By Andrew Hill in Boston - 7 Mar 2000 00:30GMT America's chief stock market watchdog on Monday warned investors to be on guard against biased advice, flimsy business plans and a "casino mentality" in the US equity markets. "Unless investors truly understand both the opportunities and risks of today's market, too many may fall victim to their own wishful thinking," said Arthur Levitt, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr Levitt has issued such warnings before, but the timing of his remarks - with the technology-fuelled Nasdaq Composite Index on the brink of breaking through the 5,000 mark - gave added weight to his speech at a conference on the New Economy. The SEC chief did not spare internet entrepreneurs in his warning. Speakers at the Boston College conference included web luminaries such as David Wetherell, chairman and chief executive of CMGI, which owns stakes in a network of internet companies, and Bob Davis, president and chief executive of Lycos, the web portal company. Many newly floated internet companies command record price/earning multiples. Mr Levitt said that made it particularly hard for investors to work out what companies were worth. "Are some of today's companies really worth 1,000 times nothing?" he asked the audience of 1,800 at the Jesuit university. "It's a fair question," Mr Davis of Lycos said afterwards. "But you can't use a broad brush to paint the entire market." Mr Levitt also focused on the feverish demand for start-up companies to go public. Last year, the number of initial public offerings in the US rose to record levels. "But sometimes this race to an IPO comes at the expense of laying the foundation for a viable, long-term company," Mr Levitt said. Although the free market had helped increase the standard of living for millions of Americans, the SEC chairman said that made it "even more important that we commit ourselves to balance, discipline and managing risk". After setting records at the start of the year, the main US equities indices diverged, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average well below its January peak in spite of a rally last week and the Nasdaq forging ever higher on outperformance by a narrow group of information technology and bio-technology stocks. On Monday, the Dow slipped in morning trading - down 80 points at 10,286.30 at lunchtime in New York - while the Nasdaq was at 4,949.36, up 35 points. Speaking at the same conference, Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, reiterated that the rise in the stock market had fuelled increased consumer purchases and "helped support the boom in capital spending". The technology stocks leading the Nasdaq rally have proved resistant to any monetary policy tightening, but when the Fed's open market committee meets next, it is widely expected to raise interest rates. Mr Greenspan again indicated that imbalances in labour markets and a falling off in portfolio and direct foreign investments in the US might threaten the country's macroeconomic stability. If wage increases surpassed gains in productivity, "this would intensify inflationary pressures or squeeze profit margins, with either outcome capable of bringing our growing prosperity to an end". For a stable macroeconomic environment, he said, "expansion of demand must moderate into alignment with the more rapid growth rate of potential supply.".