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Pastimes : The Justa and Lars Honors Bob Brinker Investment Club Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wally Mastroly who wrote (2046)	9/25/2002 10:04:39 PM
From: Boca_PETE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10065

Wally: RE: BUFFET SPEAKS IN LONDON timesonline.co.uk September 26, 2002 "Buffett expects markets to get worse" By Jon Ashworth ------------------------------------------------------- WARREN BUFFETT, the billionaire American investor, has given warning that stock markets will get worse before they get better –– but he still believes that equities are a good long-term investment. In an interview, the so-called “Sage of Omaha’’ said that the world economy is paying the price for dot-com hype. Mr Buffett said: “We’re in a long correction, because we had an incredible ‘mass hallucination’, ‘bubble’, whatever you want to call it. That carries a price with it, which has not been fully paid but which we’ve made a good downpayment on so far.” He added: “It’s only in the rinse cycle that you find out how dirty the laundry’s been. We’re in the rinse cycle now.” Mr Buffett has kept his faith in the markets. He said: “Long term, I’ve always been a bull. The American economy’s going to do very well. The UK economy’s going to do very well over time. But you get these periods when markets disconnect from the real world. We had a situation where the markets became totally disconnected from business reality. This was a pretty extreme case, but they get back in sync after a while. If you own equities for 25 years or 30 years, you will get a result that parallels that of business.” Mr Buffett said that unscrupulous US executives took advantage of the late-1990s stock market hype. He said: “You had an erosion of accounting standards. You had an erosion, to some extent, in executive behaviour. But during a period when everybody ‘believes’, people who are inclined to take advantage of other people can get away with a lot.” Mr Buffett was speaking while in London to promote NetJets, his fractional ownership jet operator. He is seeking acquisitions in the UK, but ruled himself out as a bidder for British Energy, the troubled nuclear power group. --------------------------- P

To: Wally Mastroly who wrote (2046)	9/30/2002 12:26:21 AM
From: Wally Mastroly	Respond to of 10065

Backing out of a bad Roth move: Deadline looms to reconvert and recoup tax bill- cbs.marketwatch.com

To: Wally Mastroly who wrote (2046)	9/30/2002 12:32:47 AM
From: Wally Mastroly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10065

Uncertain Profits Will Keep Spending Down Sunday September 29, 5:07 pm ET Reuters Business Report By Nicole Maestri NEW YORK (Reuters) - Spending by U.S. businesses is expected to remained depressed for several years as corporations, uncertain about future profits and unable to raise prices, make do with what they have, a panel of market strategists said on this week. ADVERTISEMENT A falloff in capital spending helped lead the economy into recession last year, and Federal Reserve officials have said that a pickup is vital to ensuring a solid economic recovery. But that pickup is being delayed by murky profit outlooks. "Business investment follows corporate profitability. It doesn't lead it," said Laurence Smith, global chief investment officer at Credit Suisse Asset Management, during a roundtable hosted by Reuters on Thursday. However, corporate profitability isn't taking the lead. Several companies, including JDS Uniphase Corp. (Toronto:JDU.TO - News; NasdaqNM:JDSU - News) and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Inc. (NYSE:JPM - News), have already warned their quarterly results will be below targets. For companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index, Wall Street is forecasting that earnings will grow 7.5 percent in the third quarter, compared with the third quarter of 2001. That is down from growth of 16.6 percent forecast at the beginning of the quarter, according to Thomson First Call. Corporations have lost some of their tools to fend off weak profits, as price increases fail to take hold. "Companies are trying to raise prices," said Richard Bernstein, Merrill Lynch's chief U.S. strategist. "In most cases, they're not successful." That means more job cuts can be expected. "We think that corporations are ultimately going to make themselves more profitable the old-fashioned way: They're going to lay people off because they can't raise prices," Bernstein said. Subodh Kumar, chief investment strategist at CIBC World Markets, said corporations lost their pricing power throughout the 1990s. The resulting low prices did in part keep consumer spending going strong despite the downturn. That has helped keep the U.S. economy from slipping back into recession. Consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of U.S. gross domestic product. "The U.S. consumer has been the only game in town," Kumar said. Consumers will remain the only game in town for a while, as concerns over corporate profits, uncertainty over the economy's path and an inability to raise prices result in corporate reluctance to step up capital spending. "You're going to need to ramp up profits and you're going to need a couple of years of profits being ramped up before corporate America says, 'OK, let's get into growth-mode again'," Smith said.