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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: uu who wrote (6813)	1/15/1998 3:22:00 PM
From: Pierre Aydin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Hopefully we could break the 45 barrier, If we do nothing will stop this baby. Pierre

To: uu who wrote (6813)	1/16/1998 7:54:00 AM
From: Holger Johannsen	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 64865

Addi, >First of all please accept my sincere apologies for misspelling you name. I am deeply sorry. My fingers sometime type faster than what I want to write.< No problem, I know that my Swedish name gives Americans a tough time. When I travel to the US and people ask me for my name, I say Johannsen and usually get a response like this: Nice to meet you Joe or nice to meet you Mr Hanson ;-)) I will try to shed some light on the European situation and I hope there are other Europeans on this board who can contribute to it as well. Europe consists of so many different countries that I think someone who refers to Europe as a whole does not have a clue about it. BTW, this seems to be the problem with the media and Asia as well. These Asian countries are all caught in the turmoil right now but economically they differ a lot. I guess we should not so much worry about Indonesia or the likes, the ones to worry about are Japan and China. As long as these countries stay on course we won't see much of an impact. Just to put things into perspective, the market cap of the stock market of Indonesia is equivalent to the market cap of Allianz AG, Germany's largest insurance company and GE's market cap is equivalent to Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand combined. Anyway, Germany is economically divided right now. Just like the Yen the German Mark lost its value last year and thus the German exporting companies like car manufacturers, pharmaceuticals, capital goods makers etc. did very well. They were also able to streamline their organizations and increased their productivity. This trend will IMO continue in 1998 and since the German industry has only minor relations to Asia they won't be much affected. The domestic industry is in a totally different situation. Domestic demand is at an all time low, unemployment at an all time high, consumer confidence at an all time low, taxes and social welfare costs are that high that the average worker in Germany is barely doing any better than someone who lives on social welfare. The economy has turned into a state driven economy because the state absorbs most of the money and then redistributes it. This kind of system will ultimately lead to a collapse of the economy and with the upcoming election and a good chance that the Socialists will win, Germany will get even into deeper trouble. One can already see this in France because the situation has worsened there after the Socialists took over. France won't contribute to growth as well. The same goes for Austria and Switzerland. The situation is quite different in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Italy and the UK. They have adopted a more Anglo-Saxon view of the economy and despite high unemployment in some southern countries their economies are back on track. The UK would actually benefit from the Asian turmoil because they are in a similar situation to the US. Spain and Portugal grow through the close ties with Latin America. Eastern Europe is becoming a powerhouse. Most of the economies there do very well, especially Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary and Poland. Would you believe that Croatia would already qualify for the European Monetary Union? The Scandinavian nations are a mystery to me, don't know much about them. The same goes for Greece and Turkey. So after all, I think Europe will have decent growth this year and won't be much affected by Asia. Germany and France though will have some growth in exporting industries but overall their situation will worsen and perhaps they will even fall back into a deeper recession which then would put the whole of Europe at risk. That does not necessarily mean bad news for Sun or other IT companies. IT will get even more important in a move to cut costs, increase productivity and gain a competitive edge. Since workers are so expensive in Germany many companies try to replace them with the help of IT. Especially the large retailers will participate in this move. BTW, right now Sun trades at $ 44 here in Germany. I wonder if this is a bargain price or a foolish one ;-) Hope this helps a bit, Addi. Holger