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Politics : Dutch Central Bank Sale Announcement Imminent? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ray DeMoss who wrote (491)	8/3/1998 1:38:00 PM
From: Jeffrey James	Respond to of 81137

Warren Buffet sells "zeros". Sign that interest rate drop has ended. Buffett dumps zero bonds Move by mogul investor yields 22 % surge in Berkshire Hathaway 2Q profit August 3, 1998: 12:43 p.m. ET NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company that doubles as an investment vehicle for Wall Street mogul Warren Buffet, said Monday the company has dumped all of its U.S. government long-term zero-coupon bonds, yielding a 22 percent surge in second-quarter earnings. Berkshire said its second-quarter net income from operations rose to $312 million, or $251 a share, from $255 million, or $207 a share, a year ago. Berkshire Hathaway, based in Omaha, Neb., operates property, casualty and reinsurance businesses through subsidiaries that include National Indemnity and GEICO. But the company bears the indelible stamp of its principal owner, Warren Buffett, whose acumen in the investment arena has made him the nation's second-richest man, after Bill Gates, and catapulted him to near-iconic status among many Berkshire shareholders. Partly for that reason, Buffett's market moves -- no matter how seemingly insignificant at first blush -- are often the object of outsized scrutiny. Hence, when Buffet went on a buying spree last year in the silver market, the gambit sparked a rally in that commodity that only recently petered out. In a statement Monday, Berkshire Hathaway gave no reason for the company's -- and by extension, Buffett's -- decision to dump the zero-coupon obligations. Instead, the company merely stated that "a substantial portion of 1998's second-quarter gain resulted from the sale of Berkshire's entire position in zero-coupon obligations of the U.S. government." The company added that GEICO, Berkshire's largest unit, had contributed significantly to the earnings gain, underwriting a profit margin of 8 percent in the second quarter. The company predicted that GEICO's voluntary policies, which increased by 10 percent in 1996 and 16 percent in 1997, would grow by 19 percent in 1998. Berkshire called the net income figures for 1998 "meaningless" in evaluating the company, since they include after-tax investment gains of $864 million in the second quarter, and $1.334 billion in the first half. By contrast, the company posted investment gains of $23 million in the second quarter of 1997, and $44 million through the first six months. "While the realized gains had a material impact on Berkshire's 1998 reported earnings," the company said, "they had a very minor impact on Berkshire's shareholders' equity." Berkshire's common stock trades on the New York Stock exchange under separate ticker symbols -- (BRK.A) and (BRK.B) -- for its class-A and class-B shares. Berkshire A-stock was trading up 595 at 70,700 Monday, while class-B shares climbed 20 to 2,362.

To: Ray DeMoss who wrote (491)	8/3/1998 2:20:00 PM
From: m.philli	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81137

While the Japanese presses roll out the yen,and the government exchanges them for U.S. dollars, gold continues to drop along with the yen. All the while the Japanese are buying commodity/precious metal derivitives as well as the physicals, with the U.S. bucks. When they have accumulated all the gold they can, and the price rises to $600, the profits should cover any bad loans held by Japanese banks. The yen will rise, commoditys will rise, confidence will rise. A new yen will be issued, convertible at ? (100/1). backed by gold, this will become the Asian block currency, Japan , the Switzerland of Asia.( IMHO) Yes, I know what people will think of this opinion! There are 2 phrases that come to mind. "you idiot" being in the majority. but there is, one other possibility, "out of the mouth of babes", so here it is to kick around.