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Strategies & Market Trends : Can you beat 50% per month? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (8084)	4/16/2005 11:12:44 AM
From: Smiling Bob	Respond to of 19257

George, we have a problem. Meeting May Focus on Oil, Market Losses By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON - The Bush administration, already concerned about the economic fallout of soaring oil prices, now also has to contend with a plunging stock market. AP Photo Related Quotes DJIA NASDAQ S&P 500 10087.51 1908.15 1142.62 -191.24 -38.56 -19.43 Delayed Data Providers - Disclaimer Oil and jittery markets were certain to take center stage at a meeting Saturday of finance officials from the world's seven richest industrial countries. Treasury Secretary John Snow and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan were hosts for the talks involving the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada. Discussions began early in the day among the Group of Seven leaders, to be followed by the weekend meetings of the 184-nation International Monetary Fund and its sister lending institution, the World Bank. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan planned to meet with the finance officials in the evening. Aides said he would discuss how rich nations' increased financial support for poor countries fits into his plans for an overhaul of the United Nations. The finance meetings took place a few blocks from the White House, under tight security as usual. Police used dump trucks and other barricades to close off a two-block radius around the IMF and World Bank headquarters. Authorities issued a permit for as many as 5,000 people to march from the World Bank to nearby DuPont Circle. But the streets were quiet early Saturday, with a few demonstrators unloading giant puppets in advance of the rally urging help for impoverished nations struggling under the burden of large debts. Economic rumblings from Wall Street hung over the finance meetings. On Friday, Wall Street suffered its worst single day loss in nearly two years when the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 191.24 points. It was the third straight triple-digit decline, which last occurred in January 2003. The sell-off was blamed on increasing worries that the U.S. economy — the locomotive for the global economy — could hit a "soft patch" worse than the slowdown of last spring and summer, which followed spikes in gasoline and energy prices. President Bush has prodded Congress to pass legislation that would allow exploration of an Alaskan wildlife refuge in hopes of providing greater energy supplies in the United States. Other G-7 nations are expected to discuss their efforts at conservation. In addition to the threat that surging oil prices posed to the global economy, the G-7 officials were expected to talk about the huge U.S. trade deficit and the inability of Japan and many countries in Europe to boost domestic growth. Debt relief for poor nations was on the agenda, too. The United States, Britain and France have offered competing plans. But an agreement is not expected until July, when President Bush and leaders of the seven wealthy countries, along with Russia, meet in Scotland at their annual economic summit. Chinese officials, invited to the past two G-7 meetings, planned to skip this session. That will not discussions about the need for China to stop linking its currency, the yuan, to the U.S. dollar. U.S. manufacturers contend this practice has undervalued the yuan by as much as 40 percent, given Chinese companies a huge competitive advantage over U.S. rivals, worsened Washington's trade gap with Beijing and cost 3 million American manufacturing jobs over the past five years. Aides said Snow pressed finance officials on Friday on the issue of having China switch now to a flexible currency whose value is set by market forces. Chinese officials insist they need to do more to prepare their financial system for such a change. The weekend sessions are the last for the World Bank's president, James Wolfensohn, who is stepping down after 10 years in the post. He agreed this week to take over the job of helping coordinate Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and reconstruction of the area as it is turned over to the Palestinians. His successor as head of the world's largest supplier of development aid is Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a leading architect of the strategy for the war in Iraq. Wolfowitz takes over on June 1. ___