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Non-Tech : Tulipomania Blowoff Contest: Why and When will it end? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sir Auric Goldfinger who wrote (2721)	3/30/2000 5:06:00 PM
From: The Duke of URL©	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3543

"Just to put things into perspective, margin debt in February stood at $265.2 billion, which is 1.53 percent of total U.S. equity market capitalization." If this is correct, it does not seem very significant, unless one is a daytrader.

To: Sir Auric Goldfinger who wrote (2721)	3/30/2000 6:18:00 PM
From: Mad2	Respond to of 3543

Interesting perspective on those poor speculative mining stocks. Mad2 Copyright 2000 The Financial Times Limited ÿ Financial Times (London) March 7, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 1 SECTION: WORLD STOCK MARKETS; Pg. 46 LENGTH: 440 words HEADLINE: WORLD STOCK MARKETS: Growth of net worth on ASX MARKETS AND THE INTERNET: BYLINE: By VIRGINIA MARSH BODY: ÿÿÿPure internet stocks in Australia account for a relatively small share of total market capitalisation. But they are still responsible for much of the feverish trading and sharp share price movements seen in recent months. The Australian Stock Exchange, which has a total capitalisation of about ADollars 650bn, has been experiencing record volumes recently, after enjoying a 54 per cent jump in the second half of last year. The increase is partly because of an upswing in trading by retail investors who account for about 30 per cent of trading. Australia has more shareholders per capita than any other country in the world. The rise in popularity of "new economy" stocks has had the most negative impact on mining, resources and manufacturing sectors. In spite of strengthening commodity prices and significant progress in restructuring, shares in BHP, Australia's largest resources group, for example, have lost a fifth of their value since the start of the year. Historically, speculative capital in the Australian market has chased junior mining companies, the sector with the greatest number of stocks. However, last year more than 40 of the 114 new listings on the ASX were from high technology companies. With capital increasingly flowing into new technology stocks, many small mining companies have found it virtually impossible to raise even small amounts of cash. This has, in turn, created an opportunity for technology start-ups which have been able to gain "backdoor" listings quickly and cheaply by reversing into small mining companies. In the past year, more than a third of the market's 300-odd junior mining companies have either partly or totally transformed themselves into technology stocks in this way, often keeping the same shareholders. The interest in internet stocks is so great that just an announcement of such plans has typically caused a sharp jump in the respective company's share price. However, there are few large pure internet or technology companies and the sector's weighting in the market is small. The ASX does not have a technology index but Warburg Dillon Read estimates such stocks account for about 3 per cent of the market in value terms. Fund managers have therefore been shifting capital into stocks in sectors set to benefit most from the internet age such as media and telecoms, areas that are well-represented on the ASX. According to Salomon Smith Barney, these so-called "convergent technology" stocks already account for 31 per cent of the equity market's capitalisation, a share it predicts will grow to 50 per cent within six years. Virginia Marsh LANGUAGE: ENGLISH LOAD-DATE: March 7, 2000 ÿ