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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tony Viola who wrote (41942)	2/8/2001 2:16:52 PM
From: michael97123	Respond to of 70976

Thursday February 8, 1:58 pm Eastern Time Goldman's Cohen warns of recession talk WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Influential Wall Street analyst Abby Joseph Cohen said on Thursday the economic slowdown in the last few months was more pronounced than she expected but doubted the nation was headed into a recession. ``The economy has slowed, that is true; much of it was predictable,'' she said in a speech to the Association of American Publishers. ``The slowdown, however, has been more pronounced than we might have expected over the last two or three months'' because of three transitory factors -- high energy prices, cold weather and the prolonged outcome of the presidential election, she said. Cohen, the chief U.S. strategist at investment bank Goldman Sachs, said November to December of 2000 was the coldest period in 105 years while the same period in 1999 was the warmest in 105 years. ``That does have an impact on whether we're willing to get out, go shopping, test drive a new car.'' Despite figures showing consumer confidence at its lowest level in four years, Americans should not be worried about the economy, she said. ``The time to have been worried was a year ago'' when the U.S. economy and corporate profits were growing at unsustainable rates. The real risk going forward is that people will take the news of a slowing economy ``and conjure up a story in which the economy is going into a dark, deep recession. We don't think so,'' Cohen said. ``But we do know it is important that consumer confidence not erode further. We do not think that it will do so but we all have to wait and see what happens.''