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Strategies & Market Trends : Waiting for the big Kahuna -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bonnie Bear who wrote (7947)	10/27/1997 8:17:00 PM
From: kas1	Respond to of 94695

ALL: an article from yahoo.com on "small investor" sentiment. btw, brazil down 15%... see you all at the hk open... Monday October 27 7:32 PM EST Small U.S. investors calm for now as Dow sinks By Cal Mankowski NEW YORK, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Small investors were taking Wall Street's sharp decline in stride Monday, although several brokers said a reaction could occur later. ''They've been very calm. I've not had many calls although calls will probably come in tomorrow,'' said a broker in a city in a Southeastern U.S. city. The broker, who did not want to be identified, said many of his clients would probably not be aware of the magnitude of the drop until they got home from their jobs and watched the evening news on television or looked at the morning newspapers. A broker in an office located in a Northeastern city, when asked if clients were starting to panic, said, ''I haven't seen it yet. Hopefully that won't happen.'' Another broker on the East coast said some of her clients have been frustrated because they missed a strong upward move in smaller issues which occurred after bigger issues ran into difficulty during the summer. ''Most (of my clients) feel as I do, that 'this too shall pass,''' the broker said. ''Prices are getting very attractive. The danger is getting back in a little too soon.'' ''The way the markets have been hit this is beyond the small investor,'' said Marshall Acuff, strategist at Smith Barney Inc. He suggested there was no real reason for a change in sentiment other than a shift by money managers into cash with just two months to go before the end of the year., He noted that Monday's decline did not really pick up a big head of steam until after lunchtime. News that Oxford Health Plans Inc (OXHP) would have an unexpected loss in the third quarter was released early in the day. ''Oxford took a lot of hot air out of the nifty-fifty,'' said a New York trader. The term ''nifty-fifty'' refers to a group of stocks which seemingly can do no wrong which are favored by money managers. But Oxford's disclosure of bookeeping problems caused that stock to be dumped by professionals in panicky fashion. ''The emperor has no clothes, so to speak,'' the trader said, as investors scrutinized Oxford's statement that it was reviewing and reconciling previously delayed premium bills and medical claims. So far as could be determined, there was not any great problem with margin calls for indvidual investors. If individuals use credit extended by their broker to buy securities they must put up 50 percent of the price in cash. But if the price of the stock falls too much, they are faced with a ''margin call'' where they must either put up more cash or sell the stock. Excess use of margin was seen as a leading culprit in the crash of 1929. Oxford was off a whopping 41-11/16 to 27-1/16 in early mid-afternoon. The Dow industrials were off about 354 to 7361 after an unpredented 30-minute trading halt on the New York Stock Exchange triggered by a ''circuit breaker.'' The Nasdaq stock markets and other markets also observed the same halt.