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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Voltaire who wrote (53886)	7/15/2002 11:23:22 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

RESEARCH ALERT-Merrill says Dell only tech growth stock NEW YORK, July 15 (Reuters) - Merrill Lynch's top equity strategist on Monday said that, with the exception of Dell (NasdaqNM:DELL - News), the tech sector was a sell, and investors should sell the sector into strength at every opportunity. Merrill Lynch said that Dell's announcement last week that it would beat its own guidance for second-quarter earnings gave a lift to the technology sector, but that Dell's growth may be coming at the expense of competitors. "Our view remains that investors should sell technology shares into strength at every opportunity, and re-deploy those assets over other sectors. However, Dell might be an exception to our strategy," Merrill Lynch chief U.S. strategist Richard Bernstein wrote in a research note. "Dell appears to be a true 'growth company' within a sector of faux 'growth stocks,"' he said. Dell shares were up 7 cents at $25.10, from its Nasdaq closing price on Friday, after opening lower. biz.yahoo.com

To: Voltaire who wrote (53886)	7/15/2002 11:30:32 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Plunge Protection kitco.com <<...It has become fashionable to point the finger at something called the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) whenever the stock market suddenly reverses higher or fails to collapse in response to bad news. The PPT, which does actually exist although its proper name is the Working Group on Financial Markets, is headed by the Secretary of the Treasury and counts the Fed chairman as one of its members. The theory is that the PPT acts to prevent large declines in the stock market by buying S&P500 futures at critical times. Manipulation happens in the stock market on a daily basis. Mutual funds, specialists, hedge funds, Wall St firms and large speculators are often deliberately trying to move prices in one direction or another. This manipulation does not alter the trend, but it can affect the path the market takes to get from point A to point B. Furthermore, we know that the US Government intervenes in the currency and bond markets and we can be pretty sure that it meddles in the gold market, so it is not much of a stretch to conclude that the Fed and the Treasury are also directly involved in stock market manipulation. This is particularly so since it was revealed earlier this year that the Fed contemplated "unconventional measures" to stabilise markets...>>

To: Voltaire who wrote (53886)	7/17/2002 3:44:21 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Fed chief blasts 'infectious greed' Greenspan takes shots as House legislates stiff penalties for fraud By RICHARD W. STEVENSON AND RICHARD A. OPPEL JR. THE NEW YORK TIMES Wednesday, July 17, 2002 WASHINGTON -- Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, pointed yesterday to a corporate culture blighted by "infectious greed" as the cause of the breakdown in confidence among investors. With political pressure growing and the stock market falling, the House hurriedly passed a measure with criminal fraud penalties that lawmakers said were even tougher than those passed by the Senate. And while the market gained back some ground as Greenspan pronounced the economy fundamentally sound and poised for improvement, the Dow Jones industrial average receded again, closing down 166 points at 8,473.11, bringing its loss over the past seven sessions to more than 900 points. Greenspan's blunt testimony and the rushed effort by House Republicans not to be outdone by Senate Democrats in legislating stiff sentences for corporate wrongdoers were the latest indications of how deeply questions about business integrity are reshaping politics and economic policy. The criminal penalties bill passed yesterday by the House, sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, keeps central provisions of the Senate bill. They include the creation of a securities-fraud statute calling for prison time for anyone using a "scheme or artifice" to defraud investors and prison terms for senior corporate executives who "recklessly and knowingly" publish misleading financial statements. In both cases, the House bill calls for longer maximum prison terms: sentences of up to 20 years or 25 years, versus five years or 10 years, for similar infractions, in the Senate bill. However, the House's version of the new securities-fraud statute calls for penalties only for those who "execute" a scheme to defraud investors. The Senate, by contrast, also criminalizes "attempts" to defraud investors. The next test of the political potency of the issue is likely to come in how quickly the House and Senate can work out their differences in approach. While their bills have important differences, the two chambers have come closer to a common view than anyone predicted even a few weeks ago. Investors From small brokerage offices to sprawling trading floors, people who buy and sell stocks have seemingly forgotten about the economy's surprising resilience after Sept. 11. Instead, they and millions of mutual fund investors are asking what else can go wrong in corporate America, and whether anybody -- in Washington, on Wall Street or in executive suites -- has a solution that will help them trust business again. "The question is whether the love affair that Americans had with stocks is dead, or whether they're just adjusting their expectations," said Jeremy Siegel, a finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of a popular book on the long-term benefits of stock-market investing. "There's a lot of confusion. A lot of people just don't know what to do." Financial advisers say some of the new skepticism is a painful but necessary adjustment to the late 1990s, when many investors came to expect 20 percent annual returns from Wall Street. And Americans' long-term confidence in the economy and the stock market remains far higher than it was at the end of other recent recessions. Conversely, with the Dow having fallen 20 percent since March, many investors say the market itself may soon be a bargain. That attitude, which typically followed every significant drop in the market during the 1990s, could help end the recent slide. As it stands, about 90 percent of individual investors say the stock market will rise over the next year, according to a survey by the Yale School of Management. Harsh words Testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, Greenspan signaled that the central bank was not in any hurry to raise the interest rates it controls from their current low levels. Instead, Greenspan seemed to indicate that the next move in rates would be up, although he did not appear to be warning such a move was imminent. While Greenspan was on Capitol Hill to discuss the economy, he took the opportunity to make his first extensive remarks on the roots of the problems afflicting corporations and the stock market, and he did not pull any punches. Greenspan, who noted that he had served on 15 corporate boards before becoming Fed chairman in 1987, pointed a finger straight at chief executives who put opportunities to cash in on stock options ahead of their responsibilities to their shareholders. "The incentives they created overcame the good judgment of too many corporate managers," said Greenspan, who three years ago began calling for companies to list stock options as an expense on their financial statements. "It is not that humans have become any more greedy than in generations past. It is that the avenues to express greed had grown so enormously." seattlepi.nwsource.com