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

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (3870)	5/25/1998 9:15:00 PM
From: Stitch	Respond to of 9980

Zeev, <<It seems as if the markets are discounting not only strikes but civil unrest on the scale we saw in Indonesia. Any chance of that? And what is the chance that this unrest will spread elsewhere?>> I must be a bit careful in my response here Zeev. I ask myself the question you ask all the time for obvious reasons. FYI, I advised a client last week to pull some engineers from Korea for the time being. I also advised a client (Japanese) to pull engineers from a development in Indonesia four weeks ago which proved to be timely. I think there is danger mounting in Asia. For example there is talk of an expectant rise in crime in Malaysia as the economic problems worsen and unemployment rises. So far this has not happened to my knowledge. Korea and Indonesia are the most obvious. But I do not believe there is immediate danger in places other then Korea and Indonesia among the countries we discuss here. Note I exclude Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos from my comments. Korea is a potential powder keg. One cannot believe the intensity of the anger that can boil over there. There is a thread of pugilism in that society IMO. Best, Stitch

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (3870)	5/25/1998 9:26:00 PM
From: MikeM54321	Respond to of 9980

Zeev, In my very humble opinion my gut tells me, even though it is looking bad, there is something within the Korean culture that won't lead to a pure meltdown Indonesian style. I'm struggling for the proper words here. Maybe the best way to say it is this. There hasn't been such a huge difference in economic conditions between the haves and have nots. So even though there are militant unions that grab the headlines and set cars on fire, the country on the whole, seems a heck of a lot more stable than Indonesia. Remember our recent riots at college campuses concerning the "beer issue" of all crazy things. Just think how the foreign press could have really blown that out of proportion if they choose to. That's sort of how I feel about Korea. Again, just a pure gut feeling and not based on any hard facts. MikeM(From Florida)

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (3870)	5/26/1998 11:36:00 AM
From: Michael Sphar	Respond to of 9980

A small bit of anecdotal evidence that Asian problems are reaching into American pockets. This taken from a recent 10-Q filing detailing a hit to a small company which partially sustains my "daily bread" and green fees: From the 10-Q file appearing at cnnfn.com as of 5/12/98: Selling, general and administrative expenses increased from 17% of sales for the first quarter of 1997 to 20% of sales during the first quarter of 1998 primarily due to the lower sales level and a $162,000 bad debt write off related to the sudden bankruptcy of an Asian customer.