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To: ild who wrote (136626)	12/1/2001 7:55:26 PM
From: John	Respond to of 436258

Argentina flushing hard. quote.bloomberg.com

To: ild who wrote (136626)	12/1/2001 10:20:09 PM
From: LLCF	Respond to of 436258

Here's Fleck's part: Staying away from GE and Big Blue Here's one simple rule shorts abide by: if you can't understand the company's financials, then you probably shouldn't buy the stock. "Watch out for managements that ask investors to take a lot on faith without providing a lot of detail," says Roberts. William Fleckenstein, president of Fleckenstein Capital, a money-management firm in Seattle that engages in short selling, says that General Electric is a company that fits this description. Although Fleckenstein is not shorting GE (GE: down $1.23 to $38.50, Research, Estimates), he says that investors would be wise to stay away from the stock because of all its moving parts -- a mish-mash of different businesses in several countries reporting in a variety of currencies. "It's literally impossible to know what's going on there," he says. In response to this criticism, General Electric spokesman David Frail says, "GE is no more difficult to understand than AOL Time Warner (the parent of CNN/Money.com) or any other multi-business company." IBM is another company that Fleckenstein is wary of, although he is not predicting anything near the likes of Enron's epic collapse. "IBM is not going to come unstuck like Enron did but if this recession is as ugly as I expect it to be, IBM will be in a world of hurt," Fleckenstein says. His main concern is that IBM (IBM: up $1.16 to $115.59, Research, Estimates) has been able to make earnings look better than they actually were over the last few years because income from its pension fund has been booked as after-tax gains. In addition, he calls IBM's balance sheet "scary". Big Blue had $10.9 billion in short-term debt as of September 30 and $17.7 billion in long-term debt. Fleckenstein is shorting IBM. (IBM did not return calls seeking comment.) DAK