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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (22737)	7/18/2003 11:26:06 PM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Saw the following interview, and found it worthwhile. PAUL KANGAS: My guest "Market Monitor" this week is Frank Cochrane, president of Investment Timing Consultants, a financial advisory firm based in Farmington, Michigan. And welcome back to NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Frank. FRANK COCHRANE, PRES., INVESTMENT TIMING CONSULTANTS: Paul, it's great to be here, thank you very much. KANGAS: When you were last with us in December, you had changed your outlook from extremely bearish to short-term bullish, saying that the markets would have worthwhile rallies but that the trading range would be fairly narrow. And that's about what happened. Do you think the market, however, now has changed its character a bit? COCHRANE: Not at all. What we’re seeing is a cyclical bear market within a secular bear market. And that being said, I think we're at the upper end of the range, especially the Dow. I can't really see the Dow penetrating the 9500 level, the S&P, say the 1015 to 1025 area, or the NDX penetrating say that 1350 area. So we’re definitely to the upper end of that range and I think for the next say three to six months or so, at best the market will go sideways, at worst it will go down say 15 to 20 percent, which I think is entirely likely, especially in the technology area that has seen a huge advance, multiples there off the map and I don't think the earnings reports that we're hearing now really justify the price movement that we're seeing. That coupled with the economy not doing that well. The employment picture isn't great. I think there is a lot of dubiousness out there still. So we're just seeing a nice rally certainly, but its within the confines of the bigger, bigger picture of the bear market. KANGAS: So valuation is still a concern of yours like it was last December? COCHRANE: Certainly. You know, when you have got the multiple of the S&P 500 at say 32, depending on what you believe, unestimated (ph), as reporting maybe a tad lower on the NASDAQ 100, the P/E multiple is somewhere I think over 200, because (UNINTELLIGIBLE) earnings (ph) of a lot of companies. So yes, valuation is definitely a concern here. And I think seasonally too we're going to be going into a time frame over the next three to six months where the market will works its way lower. KANGAS: Well, the last time you were with us in December you made some recommendations, specific ones like Northrop (NOC), which had a little run-up, and now it’s a bit lower then it was then, but United Technologies (UTX) has had a very good run. That was an excellent call. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) has been higher than it is now. It’s a few points lower. You also liked the golds like Newmont Mining (NEM) was one of your favorites, and it is up very nicely, as is Barrick (ABX), and Gold Fields (GFI) has been higher but it’s down a bit. Some pretty good calls all in all. What do you like now? COCHRANE: Well, first of all, we trade index funds, mutual funds, that type of thing. But some stocks certainly that I would look at is in the oil-related field. Halliburton (HAL), I think Halliburton has certainly struggled for the last couple of years. It’s a company though I think the chart pattern to me looks good and I think this asbestos situation will sort of be brushed aside eventually. I think that stock to me looks real, real strong, though it used to be $60 a share for that matter, still a real good company. Transocean (RIG), RIG is the symbol, we like the chart pattern there. It has been coming down. It’s something where I think it’s going to be bottoming out and moving higher. Next one would be ExxonMobil (XOM), we all know what they do, and certainly oil prices are $31 a barrel. I don't think they're coming down much soon. And finally, I still like the golds, I like Newmont Mining for gold. I think gold has begun a long-term bull market. I’m not talking about the next year, I’m talking about the next five years. I think it will do exceptionally well through this year and the next year and beyond, because the dollar, the jury still is out on the dollar. And one special situation stock that I would talk about is called Impax Laboratories (IPXL), they make generic drugs, symbol IPXL. I like the chart pattern there. The stock is a thinly-traded stock, so I would certainly watch buying it. But I would take a look at it… KANGAS: What price level is it at now? COCHRANE: It’s right around $11 ½ a share. But it’s very thinly-traded, so I would watch that aspect. KANGAS: Be careful before you put in a market order. COCHRANE: A market order. Do not put a market order in, exactly. KANGAS: All right. We just have a few minutes or – minutes, a few seconds to talk about bonds. Yes or no? COCHRANE: No. I think short term, long term, it’s not worth the risk. We have seen the 10-year go from about 3.10 up to 4 percent. And certainly Mr. Greenspan, who is trying to reflate the economy, I think the bond has put an inflation risk in there. And if he's successful, certainly bonds will not be good. But short term or long term I would just avoid them. It’s not worth the risk. KANGAS: Those stocks you recommended, do you have personal interests, you or your firm? COCHRANE: Not at all, Paul. KANGAS: OK. All right, Frank, so you’re not as bearish as you were about a year ago but you see special situations, just ride them for a little way. COCHRANE: Correct. KANGAS: Take profit. COCHRANE: You have to trade this market. KANGAS: OK. Clear enough. Thanks very much for being with us. COCHRANE: Thank you, Paul, thank you very much. KANGAS: My guest "Market Monitor" this week, Frank Cochrane, president of Investment Timing Consultants. Nightly Business Report transcripts are available on-line post broadcast. The program is transcribed by eMediaMillWorks. Updates may be posted at a later date. The views of our guests and commentators are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Community Television Foundation of South Florida, Inc. Nightly Business Report, or WPBT. Information presented on Nightly Business Report is not and should not be considered as investment advice. Copyright (c) 2003 Community Television Foundation of South Florida, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Best O' Luck to all. lurqer

To: lurqer who wrote (22737)	7/19/2003 9:35:17 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

U.S. Had Uranium Papers Earlier Officials Say Forgeries on Iraqi Efforts Reached State Dept. Before Speech By Walter Pincus and Dana Priest The Washington Post Friday 18 July 2003 The State Department received copies of what would turn out to be forged documents suggesting that Iraq tried to purchase uranium oxide from Niger three months before the president's State of the Union address, administration officials said. The documents, which officials said appeared to be of "dubious authenticity," were distributed to the CIA and other agencies within days. But the U.S. government waited four months to turn them over to United Nations weapons inspectors who had been demanding to see evidence of U.S. and British claims that Iraq's attempted purchase of uranium oxide violated U.N. resolutions and was among the reasons to go to war. State Department officials could not say yesterday why they did not turn over the documents when the inspectors asked for them in December. The administration, facing increased criticism over the claims it made about Iraq's attempts to buy uranium, had said until now that it did not have the documents before the State of the Union speech. Even before these documents arrived, both the State Department and the CIA had questions about the reliability of intelligence reports that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger and other African countries. Beginning in October, the CIA warned the administration not to use the Niger claim in public. CIA Director George J. Tenet personally persuaded deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley to omit it from President Bush's Oct. 7 speech in Cincinnati about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. But on the eve of Bush's Jan. 28 State of the Union address, Robert Joseph, an assistant to the president in charge of nonproliferation at the National Security Council (NSC), initially asked the CIA if the allegation that Iraq sought to purchase 500 pounds of uranium from Niger could be included in the presidential speech. Alan Foley, a senior CIA official, disclosed this detail when he accompanied Tenet in a closed-door hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Wednesday. Foley, director of the CIA's intelligence, nonproliferation and arms control center, told committee members that the controversial 16-word sentence was eventually suggested by Joseph in a telephone conversation just a day or two before the speech, according to congressional and administration sources who were present at the five-hour session. At the hearing, Foley said he called Joseph to object to mentioning Niger and that a specific amount of uranium was being sought. Joseph agreed to eliminate those two elements but then proposed that the speech use more general language, citing British intelligence that said Iraq had recently been seeking uranium in Africa. Foley said he told Joseph that the CIA had objected months earlier to the British including that in their published September dossier because of the weakness of the U.S. information. But Foley said the British had gone ahead based on their own information. When Foley first began answering questions on who from the White House staff sought to put the uranium charge in the State of the Union address, he did not mention Joseph's name, referring only to "a person" at the NSC. It was only after Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and several other senators demanded the name that he identified him. A senior administration official said yesterday the only conversation that took place was about the classification of the source of the alleged uranium transaction. The question was whether to attribute the alleged transaction to a classified U.S. intelligence estimate or to a published British dossier and, he said, it was "agreed to use the British." However, there are six other references to information carried in the U.S. estimate, and they are attributed to "U.S. intelligence" or "intelligence sources." Both the Senate committee and the White House have begun internal discussions over how to handle the potentially delicate task of questioning presidential aides as part of a congressional investigation. Claims of executive privilege have in the past increased public interest and complicated the process of calling on White House aides to testify. Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said Wednesday night: "We will take this where it leads us. We'll let the chips fall where they may." A senior congressional aide said Roberts is prepared to seek a way to question Joseph and any other White House aides. Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), the ranking Democrat on the panel, said yesterday: "The intelligence committee has crossed that line . . . and we are looking at people in the executive branch, including the White House." He said that both Republicans and Democrats are concerned "about the further implication beyond Tenet." The FBI is also considering opening a counterintelligence case if it suspects a foreign government created the forgeries about the alleged Iraqi uranium purchase to influence U.S. foreign policy. Next week, the Senate intelligence committee will hold a closed-door hearing to question the CIA's inspector general, who has been investigating the agency's handling of nuclear-related intelligence on Iraq. The documents first came into the U.S. government's hands when a journalist turned them over to U.S. Embassy officials in Rome. Other officials said previously that the Italian intelligence services had given the documents to the British, which first mentioned the Niger-Iraq claim in its published case against Iraq in September. "We acquired the documents in October of 2002, and they were shared widely within the U.S. government, with all the appropriate agencies in various ways," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday. The embassy promptly informed the CIA station chief in Rome that it had the documents and, on Oct. 19, gave copies to intelligence officials. A senior intelligence official said the agency did not consider the documents revelatory because they contained the same information, from other sources, already in intelligence reports. But in hindsight, the official said, "we failed to see the signals" that would have indicated they were forged. Another intelligence official said "the documents were such a minor point of analysis for anyone" because the information was not deemed reliable. On Feb. 4, the U.N. inspectors' Iraq team was called to the U.S. mission in Vienna and verbally briefed on the contents of the documents. A day later, they received copies, according to officials familiar with the inspectors' work. Using the Google Internet search engine, books on Niger and interviews with Iraqi and Nigerien officials, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts determined that the documents were fake. On March 7, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei announced they were forged. It is not yet known who created the forgeries. truthout.org