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To: Lucretius who wrote (10995)	8/14/2000 6:55:40 PM
From: pater tenebrarum	Respond to of 436258

o.k., i actually agree with that assessment.

To: Lucretius who wrote (10995)	8/14/2000 7:12:29 PM
From: patron_anejo_por_favor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

SEC? Cypriots don' need no steenkin' SEC!!: dallasnews.com Soured stock market spurs attacks in Cyprus Financial ruin follows unprecedented investor profits 08/12/2000 By Gregory Katz / The Dallas Morning News NICOSIA, Cyprus – In most countries, when the stock market falls, investors express their displeasure by screaming at their brokers, closing out their accounts or even suing their advisers for fraud or gross incompetence. In Cyprus, where tempers seem hotter than the blazing August sun, unhappy shareholders, who have this year seen the value of their holdings plummet by more than 40 percent, have taken to placing car bombs under their brokers' BMWs or tossing bombs at their brokers' offices. Angry investors have also tried to storm the stock exchange to protest the falling prices. The string of bombings – three this week alone – follows a crazy boom-and-bust cycle that saw the island's fledgling stock market rise by more than 400 percent in 1999 before collapsing this year, bringing financial ruin to the thousands of middle-class workers who re-mortgaged their homes to buy stocks when the market was going up. "It's a catastrophe for a lot of people," said Lellos Demetriades, mayor of Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. "We never had a stock market before, and people didn't know what it was. People were borrowing money to put into the market because they didn't understand that the market can go down as well as up." But he said that Cyprus' national economy is generally strong and that the steep drop in the stock market does not mean that the country is in financial shambles. Thus far, no one has been injured in the attacks, which have come early in the morning, before the business day begins. Police have asked for help in identifying the bombers, who are thought to be associated with low-level organized crime figures who have been burned by poor investments. The detonation of car bombs is relatively common in Cyprus, especially in the city of Limassol, where Russian mafia groups have set up operations. One of the bombs destroyed an $80,000 BMW owned by Lambros Panayiotides, co-owner of a prominent brokerage with many branches throughout the island. Some of the large brokers have beefed up their security systems in light of the attacks, which have become more frequent as the stock market drifts lower. There have been five recent bombings directed at stock trading facilities, with no arrests so far. Before the stock market started to weaken early this year, Cyprus was gripped by a nationwide stock obsession that started in June 1999, when the market rose by more than 11 percent. At that time, several TV stations switched to full-time market coverage, and many families withdrew money from bank accounts and took out loans to buy stock shares. It was common for people to sit in coffeehouses and watch the trading sessions on television, using cell phones to call in their purchase orders. Some schoolteachers were cautioned against leaving their classes to call their brokers while the market was open. The Central Bank of Cyprus tried to slow the pace of speculative investment. It urged banks to tighten credit requirements to make it harder for people to borrow money to put into the stock market, but investment kept increasing. The fresh demand for stocks caused the market to take off in July, when prices rose by more than 57 percent, and again in August, when prices leaped forward by more than 78 percent. The trend continued for most of the rest of the year despite technical problems caused by the boom. At one point, trading was suspended for several weeks because officials simply could not cope with the trading demand. The incredible rise in share values led to a steep increase in the demand for luxury real estate and cars. A large number of "paper millionaires" was created as more and more people borrowed money to get into the market, said Eliza Loizou, an investment consultant at The Brokerage House of Louis Clappas in Nicosia. She said Cyprus was gripped by a stock market fever that saw everyone – from licensed brokers to newspaper vendors in corner kiosks – offering opinions on which stocks were about to skyrocket. Rumors were treated as fact, she said. Talk about the market eclipsed, for the first time in memory, talk about the ongoing clash between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots that has left the island divided for 26 years, she said. "The stock market was the only topic everywhere you went, and no one talked about the Cyprus problem anymore," she said. "But the rise was a big balloon that had to burst, and people would not listen to the warnings. It was a crazy, hectic time, and people ignored the fundamentals. Everyone was optimistic and happy." She said Cyprus now faces social problems because many middle-class investors have lost substantial amounts of money in the inevitable correction that followed the boom. Her firm is today advising people to invest carefully in companies they have studied and is cautioning against unrealistic expectations. But she said that if the market starts to rise again, it is likely that Cypriots would again throw caution to the wind and risk everything by buying more shares.