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To: Mannie who wrote (14682)	4/17/2000 11:03:00 PM
From: r.edwards	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 35685

Janet Reno can't touch anything without screwing it up !!! Forgive me LORD, but why do we have to have so many liberals,liars, and lesbians running the show...? "Along with the Joel Klein/ Justice Department/ Thomas Penfield Jackson assault on Microsoft, with its implied regulatory intrusion into America's most innovative companies, this would explain the excessive drop in Nasdaq stocks. """

To: Mannie who wrote (14682)	4/17/2000 11:53:00 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 35685

Abby Comes Out Swinging By Stacey L. Bradford April 17, 2000 <<ONE OF WALL STREET'S most influential bulls came out defending the market Monday. Goldman Sachs' Abby Joseph Cohen is calling the recent market volatility nothing short of a buying opportunity. She says stock prices could rise 15% to 20% by year-end. Our No. 1-ranked pundit says the correction we have witnessed appears to be driven by market factors rather than changing fundamentals. She expects the current economic expansion to continue and stock prices to rise with it. Cohen is keeping her year-end price targets, pegging the S&P 500 at 1575 and the Dow at 12600 by the end of 2000. (She doesn't set price targets for the Nasdaq.) The recent market volatility has encouraged Cohen to review three key assumptions she uses to make her market forecast. First, she looks at earnings growth. And so far, operating earnings appear on track to increase by 10% this year. While only 20% of all S&P 500 companies have reported their results, Cohen is impressed that more than 70% of those have come in above analysts' estimates. Inflation is also a key ingredient for Cohen's financial models. She expects core inflation to drift higher, but not accelerate dramatically. She says unemployment remains high outside the U.S. And while the labor market is extremely tight here in the U.S., rising wages are somewhat offset by gains in productivity. Finally, the Federal Reserve should continue to raise rates, but in a deliberate, incremental pattern. "There are signs that additional Federal Reserve tightening is already expected by investors, as may be suggested by widening corporate yields and poor stock price performance for banks," Cohen said in a note issued Monday. One thing Cohen is not is a stock picker. She leaves that up to her colleagues. However, she is recommending "investment alternatives" that have been somewhat neglected recently. These include REITs and non-Treasury bonds. Monday's words may sound a bit ironic to some. Just a couple of weeks ago, Cohen sent the markets reeling after she trimmed her equity allocation from 70% to 65% and put that capital into cash. She also cut back her exposure to tech stocks and no longer overweighted the sector in her model portfolio. At the time she said tech stocks had run up and were trading at fair value. Of course, that was before the Nasdaq fell about 25% last week to land 34% off its March 10 high. It is important to recall what happened the last time Cohen came out defending the market during a period of extreme volatility. Remember the Asian Contagion? After a sharp correction in October 1998, Cohen encouraged investors to buy into the markets. At the time, many thought she was crazy. But she was right on the money. The markets soared more than 30% in just three months.>>