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Strategies & Market Trends : Telebras (TBH) & Brazil -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Fancy who wrote (1191)	3/12/1998 4:06:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22640

A new thread member from Brazil! Welcome. I received this email this afternoon. Warning...I ask lots of questions. First question...do you guys have a "z" on your keyboard? Second question, is this stock done looking back? Welcome aboard. sf =================================================================== Here in Brasil we are also wondering what happened with Telebras closing at 145.50(128.20). I think some news is comming on Privat. or Jan. results. None of the local news wires have reported anything. Local analysts were predicting profit taking for a few days now, I think the BIG GUYS thought differently with $600 million brought into the country so far in march. Total Feb. was about that. 145.00 is very close. I will be joining SI shortly. ===================================================================

To: Steve Fancy who wrote (1191)	3/12/1998 4:19:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Respond to of 22640

FOCUS - Brazil reserves soar in February Reuters, Thursday, March 12, 1998 at 15:57 By John Miller SAO PAULO, March 12 (Reuters) - Brazil's hard currency reserves soared to $57.4 billion in February, approaching pre-Asian crisis levels on a wave of confidence in the government's near-term ability to maintain its forex policy. "Reserves are very, very healthy. March has also been extraordinary and I would be surprised if reserves were not above pre-crisis levels by the end of the month," said Francis Freisinger, senior Latin American economist at Merrill Lynch in New York. The Central Bank said Thursday that dollar reserves stood at $57.417 billion in February, a whopping $5.0 billion over January's level. Reserves fell to $51 billion from $61 billion in November as the Central Bank spent billions of dollars to support the local currency at the height of the Asian crisis. At the time, the bank also doubled annual interest rates to about 43 percent to defend the currency. Although rates have since fallen to 28 percent, they continue to attract strong dollar flows, economists said. "Capital inflows are coming from different sources. Direct investment and short-term flows have been quite significant. The exception has been issuance of external debt, which dropped off and is only now starting to come back," Freisinger said. Economists said dollar flows drawn by interest rate arbitrage would begin to slow as rates continue to fall, but the difference will be partially made up for by privatization revenues. That money should begin coming in by April, with a flood of new inflows expected to follow July's privatization of massive telecom Telebras. While the inflows reflect growing confidence in Brazil, much of the money coming in is short-term speculative capital. Of the $6.2 billion in net inflows last month, only $1.239 billion came in the form of foreign direct investment, the Central Bank noted. Economists, however, did not seem too troubled by the large inflow of "smart money." Dany Rappaport, chief economist at Banco Santander in Brazil, said the cash inflow -- regardless of its origin -- has eased worries about the nation's strong foreign exchange policy. Also Thursday, the Central Bank released a brighter current account balance of payment figure, a key indicator of the government's currency-defending capability. The bank said the current account shortfall, which includes imports and exports of merchandise and payments and receipts for services such as shipping, narrowed to $33.147 billion or 4.13 percent of gross domestic product in the 12 months to February. That compares with a revised 4.21 percent of GDP in the year to January, the bank said. "The current account deficit was better than I expected, showing significant improvement in the trade balance," said Roberto Padovani, economist at the consulting firm Tendencias. Brazil's current account gap was expected to close 1998 at 3.90 percent of GDP, down from 4.20 percent of GDP in 1997. john.miller@reuters.com)) Copyright 1998, Reuters News Service