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Strategies & Market Trends : Anthony @ Equity Investigations, Dear Anthony, -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bear Down who wrote (57371)	6/15/2000 10:55:00 PM
From: sam_o	Respond to of 122087

Hello Bull--Trap! When one of these take place, does the market open higher or lower? Or, does it gap up sharply, or gap down sharply? How do you know from the get-go this is IN PLAY??? I'm new to this post, found you guys by reference from another SI msg grp. RSVP Sam O

To: Bear Down who wrote (57371)	6/16/2000 10:39:00 AM
From: Bear Down	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 122087

Fed Officials Say U.S. Economy Is Still Growing Too Rapidly By Noam Neusner Washington, June 15 (Bloomberg) -- The economy is still growing too fast and the Fed needs to slow it down, two Federal Reserve policy-makers said today. There are ``some scattered signs of slowing,'' said Chicago Fed Bank President Michael Moskow. ``But we still are in a period where aggregate demand is growing at a pace that's exceeding potential supply,'' he said in a Grand Rapids, Michigan, speech. ``I haven't seen any significant adjustment up to this point.'' Richmond Fed Bank President J. Alfred Broaddus sounded an even more concerned tone in Vienna, Austria. Core inflation, excluding food and energy prices, ``has shown signs of accelerating,'' Broaddus said. Today's comments echo those of other Fed officials this week and could suggest policy-makers don't necessarily agree with most investors that the central bank won't raise interest rates at its next meeting on June 27-28. New York Fed President William McDonough, San Francisco Fed President Robert Parry and Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig all spoke this week and all made cautionary remarks about the threat of inflation and expectations that six Fed interest-rate increases in the last year have succeeded in slowing the economy sufficiently to keep the nine-year-old U.S. expansion running. McDonough, Broaddus and Parry are voting members of the Fed's policy-setting Open Market Committee; Hoenig and Moskow don't vote this year. The implied yield of Fed futures contracts, a gauge of investor expectations of future FOMC interest rate moves, shows that most investors expect the central bank to leave the overnight bank lending rate at 6.5 percent this month and economists at all 29 banks and securities firms that deal directly with the Fed expect no rate increase. Dampened Conviction ``On the one hand, investors are convinced the economy is slowing down, which takes the pressure off the Fed,'' said Charles Crane, market strategist at Spears, Benzak, Salomon & Farrell Inc., which oversees $5 billion. Yet Broaddus' comments, combined with this morning's report from the Fed showing an unexpected increase in industrial production in May have dampened that conviction, he said. ``Labor shortages are now widely reported in a number of sectors and industries,'' Broaddus said. ``On their present course, U.S. labor markets will eventually tighten to the point where competition for workers will cause wages to rise more rapidly than productivity, which sooner or later would induce businesses to pass the higher costs on in higher prices.'' Moskow warned of imbalances that still jeopardize the economy. ``Increased productivity growth raises our potential growth, which represents the supply of goods and services we produce domestically,'' he said. ``There's evidence that demand has been outstripping even this higher supply, and the presence of this imbalance has been an important factor in recent monetary policy discussions and decision.'' The Fed will ``need to remain vigilant regarding actual and potential imbalances to ensure that the U.S. economy sustains its strong performance for years to come,'' Moskow said.

To: Bear Down who wrote (57371)	7/2/2000 1:38:07 PM
From: StockDung	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 122087

Blue Water Hedge Fund's Top-Performing Manager Sued for Fraud New York, July 2 (Bloomberg) -- Jonathan Iseson, portfolio manager of Blue Water funds, the first quarter's best-performing hedge fund group, was accused of fraud and stock manipulation by four investors in a $100 million federal lawsuit alleging that the stellar performance of the funds was achieved through stock manipulation. The investors allege that the ``financial viability'' of the three Blue Water funds, all of which mirror the same investing strategy, ``is in serious jeopardy'' because Iseson put much of the cash into a single thinly traded stock, NetSol International. They want Iseson fired and replaced by a court-appointed receiver. The investors attribute Blue Water's 140 percent first quarter gain to its manipulation of NetSol, a money-losing Pakistani software developer, which rose 249 percent in the first quarter. Iseson and several associates engaged in a ``fraudulent, deceptive and manipulative scheme to inflate the value of the funds' assets through the purchase of NetSol shares at artificially high prices,'' the suit charged. Such manipulation enabled the managers to receive a $12 million performance fee for the quarter, equal to 20 percent of Blue Water's increase during that period, the suit says. The lawsuit was filed last week in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York. It seeks class-action status to represent all investors in Blue Water. Netsol shares slumped from 64 3/4 on March 31 to a low of 15 1/8 on May 22. On Friday, they fell 11 3/16 to 35 1/2, ending the second quarter with a 45 percent loss. The Blue Water funds shed 43 percent of their value in May, according to Hedgefund.net, an Internet site for hedge fund managers. Iseson, reached by telephone at his home office in Manhasset, New York, decline to comment on the suit. NetSol NetSol, previously known as Mirage Holdings Inc., went public in 1998 as an importer of exotic clothing from Pakistan. It switched businesses when it bought a software company from the chief executive's brother and changed its name. About three- quarters of its 290 employees work in Pakistan. The company reported a quarterly loss of $797,603, or 8 cents a share, on May 12. In the year-earlier period it lost $174,000, or 6 cents a share. NetSol's corporate headquarters is in Calabasas, California. The suit alleges Iseson hid the NetSol investment because it violated Blue Water's pledge to neither acquire more than 10 percent of any company nor put more than 10 percent of assets into any one stock. Blue Water owns 25 percent, or 2.1 million shares of NetsSol, for which it paid $43 million. The hedge fund group had about 55 percent of its $71 million in net assets invested in NetSol as of May 31, according to Hedgefund.net. Net assets declined from $160 million at the end of the first quarter. The allegations are contained in a 44-page lawsuit filed June 26 against Iseson and several partners in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York. These include Tuna Capital LLC, which operates Hedgefund.net, and Tuna co-owners Alexander L. Shogren, Arne R. Rovell, and James T. Gillies. None of the three was immediately available for comment. The suit was filed by Tremont International Insurance Ltd, a unit of Tremont Advisors Inc.; Royalton Principal-Protected Fund Ltd.; ZCM Asset Holdings Co. (Bermuda) LTD, and Community Partners L.P. They say their total investment in Blue Water was about $7.7 million. Blue Water's first-quarter ranking was tabulated by MAR/Hedge, a unit of Metal Bulletin Plc, which tracks the performance of more than 1,300 hedge funds. Jul/02/2000 11:32 ET For more stories from Bloomberg News, click here. (C) Copyright 2000 Bloomberg L.P.