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To: Thomas DeGagne who wrote (782)	7/10/2001 4:23:08 PM
From: Return to Sender	Respond to of 95663

>There has not been a decline in GDP at all.< Hello! Certainly there has been a decline in growth rates. It just has not turned negative. I think that when all the numbers are officially tallied up that most would agree that we are in a technological earnings recession. As it applies to the economy overall you may be right. What I said was is that it is "something of a given that we are in a recession". I did not say that we were absolutely in a recession. The stockmarket and the economy as a whole certainly are not yet showing any signs of a recovery so we are splitting hairs over nothing. I was attempting to stimulate discussion as it concerns the best time to invest in semiconductor equipment stocks. Do you have an opinion? I really don't care how factual it might be because your guess is no better than anyone else's including mine. That being said the SOX and NASDAQ better swing green tomorrow or we could revisit the April lows in my opinion. RtS

To: Thomas DeGagne who wrote (782)	7/10/2001 4:45:54 PM
From: Return to Sender	Respond to of 95663

US economy set for 2nd-half rebound-Blue Chip poll biz.yahoo.com By Caren Bohan WASHINGTON, July 10 (Reuters) - Bolstered by aggressive Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts, the U.S. economy is poised for a pickup in coming months after a lackluster second quarter, the closely watched Blue Chip survey said on Tuesday. ``The Federal Reserve's 275 basis points (2.75 percentage points) of rate cuts this year means there's considerable monetary stimulus in the pipeline,'' the newsletter Blue Chip Economic Indicators said in a summary of its consensus forecast of private economists. ``Moreover, the recent passage of the tax-rebate program means that fiscal stimulus will soon join monetary stimulus in the pipeline,'' the Kansas City, Mo.-based publication said. Between Jan. 3 and June 27 of this year, the Fed slashed interest rates six times in one of its most aggressive easing campaigns in history as data poured in over the first six months of the year suggesting the economy was in need of a lifeline. The Blue Chip consensus suggested the recently ended second quarter was probably the low point for growth. The July survey projected gross domestic product to grow at a 0.9 percent pace in the April to June quarter, down a sliver from the 1 percent rate predicted in the June survey. But the poll looked for a recovery to 2 percent GDP growth in the third quarter and 2.9 percent in the fourth. Blue Chip said strengthening consumer spending and a resumption in demand from business for high-technology equipment would help pave the way for a recovery as the year progresses. The Commerce Department will release its estimate of second-quarter GDP on July 27. While most analysts think GDP probably stayed in the plus column during the period, some believe it may have contracted in the quarter. If GDP were to come in below zero, it would be a worrisome sign since analysts loosely define a recession as two straight quarters of negative GDP. Blue Chip said only 13 percent of its panelists think the U.S. economy is currently in a recession. The survey showed inflation concerns low as well with close to 90 percent of the economists agreeing with Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's description of inflation as ``contained'' or ``relatively well-contained.'' Asked to quantify the likely impact of the U.S. tax cut that will result in rebates of up to $600 for U.S. households this year, the Blue Chip economists said it would add about a half-percentage point to consumer spending in the third quarter. In keeping with the expectation that growth will pick up later in the year, 43 percent of economists thought the Fed was through cutting rates for this year versus 57 percent who thought the central bank had more to do.

To: Thomas DeGagne who wrote (782)	7/10/2001 4:54:06 PM
From: Return to Sender	Respond to of 95663

Emerging FX - Depressed as outlook worsens (Reuters Securities) biz.yahoo.com ... second straight quarter raising fears of a full-blown recession.......Advance second quarter GDP data showed falls of 0.8 percent on-year and 10.1 percent... politics.yahoo.com Transcript of July 9 White House Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer (US Newswire) ...FLEISCHER: As you know, they revised GDP figures for January,...... there is a strong possibility the nation could go into recession....

To: Thomas DeGagne who wrote (782)	7/12/2001 1:36:59 PM
From: Return to Sender	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95663

Recessions are only natural July 12, 2001 12:00 AM ET by Thomas Coyle upside.com NEW YORK -- Barron's Dictionary of Business Terms says the word "recession" refers to a "downturn in economic activity, defined by many economists as at least two consecutive quarters of decline in a country's gross domestic product." Hard-line etymologists The glossary attached to Yahoo's finance website says pretty much the same thing, though it's also kind enough to remind readers that recessions are only temporary. For some reason the lexicographers of the American Heritage Dictionary take a more stringent line, defining "recession" as "an extended decline in general business activity, typically three consecutive quarters of falling real gross domestic product." Folksy as hell And of course others have culled out their own definitions of the term. "It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours," was a stump quip of Harry Truman -- one that Ronald Reagan borrowed, and modified slightly, for use in his successful run for the White House in 1980. Oddly enough though, one of the loosest definitions of the word comes from the National Bureau of Economic Research, an economics think tank that assigns beginning and end dates to recessions -- though only after the fact. To NBER a recession is simply "a period of declining output and employment." For the Economic Cycle Research Institute, one of whose roles is to forecast economic developments by means of its Weekly Leading Index, a recession is, well, pretty much what's going on in the U.S. right now. You're looking at it "We're seeing a classic sequence," said Lakshman Achuthan, ECRI's managing director. "The leading indicators moved to a point where it would have been unprecedented to avoid a recession by March," he said. "By May, the coincident indicators that define the economy right outside your window started moving in ways only seen during a recession." With the exception of roughly stable personal income and higher equity prices in the second quarter, ECRI's leading indicators have been in steady and pronounced decline this year. Industrial production is down, manufacturing and trades sales have shrunk, payrolls have withered and unemployment is up -- and in every case by increments seen only in times of recession. Just say yes Though many in the stock market still shun the R-word, Greg Mitchell, president of D.B. Root and Co., an investment advisory, thinks it's time to start staring facts in the face. "I would say, 'Yes, we're in a recession,'" he told UpsideToday. "And that's due to the fact that consumer spending is down." In other words the other shoe has dropped: the waning production that led to layoffs is beginning to make the spendthrift U.S. consumer think twice about shopping till he drops. "Consumers are starting to change their habits," said Mitchell. "Having blown so much in the late '90s, we've run out of credit." No pain, no gain But, Mitchell added, painful as they are to many, recessions serve to keep the economy on track -- not least by forcing consumers and businesses to use money more efficiently by making inefficiencies costly. "The '80s set up the '90s," Mitchell said, referring to the U.S. economy's painful transition from its reliance on profit-squeezed rust-belt industries to the IT-driven industries that came roaring to the fore in the second half of the last decade. "That period forced companies to come up with good business plans," said Mitchell. "But by the late '90s it had turned back to a more fly-by-night scenario." Just so In other words, the economy got fat, sloppy and careless -- and needed to go on a diet and get an attitude adjustment. Setting aside the question of whether recessions are good or bad in the long run, ECRI's Achuthan views them simply as inevitable. "It means we're experiencing a normal free-market economy, where you have choices as to what you buy and what you sell and how you employ your money," he said. The end is not nigh "One of the key characteristics of cycles is that they turn," Achuthan added. "We've experienced the downturn -- we're in it right now -- and one thing we can bet on is that there will be an upturn at some point in the future." In the meantime, Achuthan said, there's little to be gained from denying reality. "Just observing that we're in a recession now doesn't mean that the world has come to an end."