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Non-Tech : Amati investors -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JW@KSC who wrote (30180)	1/5/1998 3:03:00 AM
From: Richard D	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 31386

<<We are on the verge of worldwide deflation.>>--George Soros Hi Jim, I heard CNBC reference this Financial Times interview last week. He goes on to say that the international financial community has yet to face up to the depth and seriousness of the Asian crisis. While I am always suspicious of Soros' motives in these interviews, I tend to believe him this time. I also read somewhere that mutual fund outflows were the highest in December since they started recording them in the early 90's. Though another source of inflow/outflow data contradicted this report, that would be a heads up for the market direction. Also, Fidelity just stopped revealing their cash position in mutual funds. I wonder if this is in preparation for stock liquidation. Ralph Akampura (spelling?), the Bull of Bulls, recently started to hedge about his Dow 10,000 predicition, and was notably cautious on "Wall Street Week" this past Friday. On the show, he quoted figures on how optomistic the vast majority of money managers were regarding the U.S. market. I read this as complacent, the sign of a market top (short or long term, I don't know.) The low bond yields have been supporting the stock market lately. I wonder what happens when these positions get unwound. Chairman Greenspan is considering the possibilities of global deflation this weekend. These are not constructive thoughts for financial assets. The dollar is very strong, now, and should significantly hurt multinational companies who will lose competitiveness on prices abroad. I don't believe these risks are yet fully discounted in the market. So I finally took the plunge and bought puts on the OEX Friday. It's a contrarian play going into the January effect, but if I'm right the reward could be significantly larger than the risk (not advice for anyone, coming from one who lost on the April Amati 20 calls gamble ;^) ). The rest of the portfolio is in 100% cash. I hope you and everyone else on the thread had happy holidays, Best regards, Richard PS Walt, if you're out there, what's your read on the situation?