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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas Haegin who wrote (1)	12/21/1997 3:58:00 PM
From: Thomas Haegin	Respond to of 9980

IMF growth forecast for Japan no surprise -analyst Reuters Story - December 21, 1997 02:12 %JP %BNK %NEWS %ECI %FCAST %GVD %DBT %INT %WHO %IMF %STX 8034.T V%REUTER P%RTR By Jon Herskovitz TOKYO, Dec 21 (Reuters) - An IMF report which forecasts Japanese economic growth of just 1.1 percent in the next calendar year, far lower than government predictions, is no surprise, economists said on Sunday. In its revised World Economic Outlook report published on Saturday, the International Monetary Fund said the Japanese economy would grow by 1.1 percent in 1998 compared with 1.0 percent in 1997. As recently as October, it had forecast 1998 growth at 2.1 percent and 1997 growth at 1.1 percent. "The initial report was hedged in all sorts of caveats," said Marshall Gittler, head of economic research at SBC Warburg Japan Ltd. "The revised figures are much more reasonable." He said the latest figures were much more in line with figures forecast by private financial firms. A rise in Japan's sales tax in April, recent failures of Japanese financial institutions and the economic woes of other Asian nations have been blamed for the country's slowdown, and economists say the effects are expected to linger into the next fiscal year. Government officials, however, have insisted that while growth this business year would be flat, December's fiscal measures would prevent future financial failures and help the economy to grow by nearly two percent in the next fiscal year. The Economic Planning Agency (EPA) said on Saturday that it was expecting Japan's gross domestic product (GDP) to grow 1.9 percent in fiscal 1998/99, which starts next April 1. The EPA, which had earlier forecast growth of 1.5 percent for the next fiscal year, said on Saturday that a one-time tax cut of 2 trillion yen ($15.6 billion), announced by Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto last week, should push up growth by around 0.4 percentage points. Japan last week announced a third package of economic stimulus efforts, including a tax cut, the issuance of at least 10 trillion yen ($77.8 billion) worth of bonds to help stabilise the nation's frail banking system as well as steps to help small and medium-size businesses. As a result of the tax cut and the resulting drop in tax revenues, Japan had to settle for a smaller-than-expected reduction in deficit-financing bond issues in its draft budget adopted by the cabinet on Saturday. IMF chief economist Michael Mussa described the stimulus package as "a step in the right direction, an important step." But he cautioned that there was no way of knowing whether the package to strengthen the banking sector would provide enough money and it was also not clear how the funds would be used. Private economists said they expected more corporate failures both inside and outside the financial sector, itself plagued by bad loans and high funding costs as creditors boost lending rates to offset risk. On Friday, the Tokyo stock market's main barometer, the 225-share Nikkei average, plummeted 846.75 points or 5.24 percent to close at 15,314.89 after the failure on Thursday of medium-sized foodstuffs trader Toshoku Ltd Ltd. Investors feared that Toshoku's collapse -- the ninth failure of a listed firm this year -- reflected a deepening credit crunch ahead of the introduction of stricter capital adequacy standards and planned financial deregulation. The IMF's Mussa said there was a risk the growth forecasts could be revised downward again if problems with business confidence and difficulties in the financial sector persisted. "The risks are on the downside but there's a bit of potential on the upside as well," he said, citing Japan's highly competitive export sector that could counterbalance problems in other areas of the economy. The IMF report said an intensified slowdown in Japan, with aggravated problems in the already seriously troubled financial sector carried the risk of potentially spilling over to other countries. Economists in Tokyo agreed that further problems in Japan's banking sector and a drop in consumer confidence was likely to cut into Japan's economic growth in 1998, which might in turn have implications for Asia's recovery from this year's crisis. "Japan is not likely to be the engine that will pull these countries out of their current economic difficulties," Gittler said.

To: Thomas Haegin who wrote (1)	12/21/1997 4:21:00 PM
From: DRRISK	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Thomas, I congratulate you on starting this thread. I will be active member and feel that the Asian Crisis is a critical issue that is being hyped and missunderstood. I follow the politics closely and would welcome our Asian friends perception as to the media hype around this issue. Good job and i am on board. DrRisk will spread the news

To: Thomas Haegin who wrote (1)	12/22/1997 12:27:00 AM
From: R.Lui	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 9980

Good to start this thread. Believe it or not: buy a car take a house free, the only sweep meet on this planet that you can buy or sell yacht, Roll-Royce, Benz etc. Where ---> Thailand. People facing bankruptcies, previous CEO selling sandwiches on the street, empty bulidings with no single buyer. The spculators earn money by hutring most people' lives The Japanese brand name products are the most popular, including aplliances, auto, groceries .... in Asia except software & computers. So you know which fields will be hurted much. Just wonder why noone ever try to mention who was or has been leading the currency attack, most asians know he is from USA, our big famous & charity Mr. Zolos, it can trigger asian's anger to repel the USA products, anyone believes our experts' opinion that they cannot afford it, maybe true but really doubtful, there have still numerous wealthy people in Asias, at least much richer than you & me combined, cannot compete with the other foreign products rather than peolpe cannot afford it..

To: Thomas Haegin who wrote (1)	3/20/1998 10:46:00 PM
From: Jethro	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 9980

I recently travelled to S.E. Asia to set up brokerage accounts and research stocks and thought some of my observations regarding Thailand might be of interest. I've posted them under "Thailand" Forum. In summmary, I liked the small caps better than the large caps. It's a lot cheaper to trade through a Thai broker, instead of a U.S. broker. And, finally, I found the web site www.thaistocks.com to be a great resource. The publisher, Paul Renaud, gives explicit directions on how to set up a brokerage account in Thailand, and his picks have done very well recently. Again, see Thailand Forum for more info.

To: Thomas Haegin who wrote (1)	7/11/1998 8:42:00 AM
From: Chispas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Thomas, this forum is a great place to exchange comments. If you're reading the discussions, I would appreciate your comments on this current report on Korea... afr.com.au

To: Thomas Haegin who wrote (1)	7/27/1998 8:57:00 AM
From: Chispas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9980

From Kitco.... Each Japanese citizen has a potential debt of $710,000... weeklypost.com

To: Thomas Haegin who wrote (1)	7/31/1998 10:34:00 AM
From: jzpax	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Is anyone here interested in the Philippine stock market? The main index (or Phisix) is close to a six month low at about 1,600 (in dollar terms about 70% off its '97 high of about 3,400). Yet it is supposed to be among the first to recover from the present crisis, in spite of present internal problems. I'll try to answer any question about this market.

To: Thomas Haegin who wrote (1)	2/25/1999 10:32:00 AM
From: Ken Katz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Japanese stockmarket is down 80% from its highs and continue to go down for more than 10 years. It does not quite fit a classical pattern of a 20%-30% bear market for 3-5 years. Something else is happening there. 10 years of straight decline -- not very optimistic view for the guaranteed long-term growth advocates. Of course each country is different. However, Japanese stockmarket, and their economy are the 2nd largest and most important in the world. It's not 1930s -- it's happening right now. Why should we assume the US stockmarket is immune from such a development? My concern is the validity of the idea that any long-term buy and hold investor in the US stock market will be rewarded eventually.