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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (24063)	10/9/2002 11:35:51 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

GE's ankles being inspected for fur as hemline lifts slightly in the breeze <...On Wall Street, prices tumbled Wednesday as bearish brokerage reports for companies such as General Electric and General Motors prompted investors to dump stocks yet again. The Dow Jones industrials hit a five-year low... > siliconinvestor.com In my upside down, downunder world, that graph looks very much like a hemline lifting. The trend does NOT look like a friend. Jay, I have become suddenly enamored of the idea that gold is a luxury purchase more than a monetary haven. Hence the perplexing resistance by gold to what is serious financial disturbance. I know and agree with the idea that as money in the form of pixels is copy/pasted by the billion, gold and other permanently valuable assets will rise in price against said inflated currency. But when the Once Were Wealthy find their Sudden Wealth Syndrome a distant memory, their gold purchases for their luxury yachts and houses will be deferred for a while. Is there a measurement of gold sales for luxury purposes chart somewhere? I know sales for hiding crustaceans are up. But I suspect that there are more people feeling poor than there are crustaceans with disposable cash to put into gold. Either way, I am also feeling like a crustacean, holding on in the crack in my rock as the waves break over the world. You will have noticed that it is not beneath my dignity to run for cover when storms threaten. Okay, I wasn't hiding quickly enough to avoid a missing limb or two which will need time to grow back. Mqurice

To: TobagoJack who wrote (24063)	10/10/2002 6:12:03 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Takenaka said market conditions were "very severe" and said he saw a need to eliminate uncertainties. Nikkei hits 8,200 mark on policy jitters By Mariko Sanchanta in Tokyo Published: October 10 2002 7:22 \| Last Updated: October 10 2002 8:22 Tokyo stocks plunged to yet another 19-year low on Thursday, with the benchmark Nikkei average falling below 8,200 in the course of the day on uncertainty regarding government plans for anti-deflation measures to counteract the effect of expected bad-loan disposals. Adding fuel to the bear trend, the Ministry of Finance said foreigners' net selling in the stock market had hit a record high of Y1,213bn in September, on pessimism regarding the health of Japan's economy and uncertainty regarding government policy. The benchmark Nikkei 225 average closed 1.2 per cent lower to 8,439.62, a 19-year low, after falling as much as 4 per cent in intraday trade. The broader Topix index closed down 1 per cent to 835.61. Heizo Takenaka, Japan's economy minister and the new head of the Financial Services Agency, on Wednesday called on the Bank of Japan to co-operate with the government on tackling deflation. On Thursday, Mr Takenaka said market conditions were "very severe" and said he saw a need to eliminate uncertainties. He said the government wanted to unveil an outline of policy steps to revive the economy by next week. He may ask the central bank to adopt an inflation target at its two-day policy meeting that starts on Thursday, and take other supportive measures if bad-loan disposals increase bankruptcies and unemployment and lead to lower consumer demand. Banks clawed back earlier losses on Mr Takenaka's comments, with Mizuho Holdings rising 5.2 per cent to Y182,000, after hitting a record low of Y150,000 in morning trade. UFJ Holdings gained 8.6 per cent to Y190,000 while Mitsubishi Financial Group lost 3.1 per cent to Y802,000. Mr Takenaka's surprise appointment as FSA chief has prompted a sharp decline in shares because of his tough stance on banks' non-performing loans. The Nikkei 225 has dropped 9 per cent since Mr Takenaka's appointment on concern that the government will allow companies to go bankrupt without cushioning the blow to the economy. Analysts say that if the Nikkei falls to 7,000-7,500, banks' capital adequacy ratios could fall below the international requirement of 8 per cent. Japan's banks are estimated to have Y40,000bn ($322bn) in equity holdings, making them vulnerable to market swings. Elsewhere, tech stocks were hit following a fall in US markets overnight. Sony lost 1.6 per cent to Y4,960, Sharp declined 2.9 per cent at Y1,044 and NTT DoCoMo was down 2.7 per cent to Y218,000.