Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Semi-Equips - Buy when BLOOD is running in the streets! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Defrocked who wrote (6515)	8/7/1998 10:06:00 AM
From: Czechsinthemail	Respond to of 10921

from Briefing.com: SEMICONDUCTOR STOCKS. Once again, semiconductor stocks have been receiving the attention of Wall Street. While Wall Street analysts are still cautious about the turmoil in Asia and the impact this part of the world will continue exert on the semiconductor sector, there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully, it is not a freight train that they have mistaken for better times for this much battered sector. Certainly, from the data released last night by the Semiconductor Industry Association, conditions in the sector had not improved much as sales of semiconductors fell 14.1% in June to $9.84 billion from a year-ago. On a sequential basis, sales also fell 2.2% in June. However, this data is a little dated and given the growing sentiment on Wall Street that a bottom is near, semiconductor stocks have begun to rebound. Among the winners lately are Intel (INTC 87) and Micron Technology (MU 35), two bell-wether issues that are reflective of the growing interest in this sector again. Both of these issues have seen sizeable price movements since late June, with Intel rising more than 31% when it trade at $66 a share and Micron more than 66% from the low $20s. While these gains have been made despite Merrill Lynch's influential analyst Tom Kurlak leading the charge (in fact, he remains quite negative on the sector), more evidence will need to come forth in the form of stable average selling prices and less inventory in the channel before the turnaround can be properly assess. But, movement in these stocks suggests that investors are willing to take a chance that the worse is over and buy ahead of the data confirming an improvement in market conditions.

To: Defrocked who wrote (6515)	8/7/1998 10:38:00 AM
From: Jim Willie CB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10921

Defrocked, money supply growth waning perhaps because of the winding down of US housing refinances / JW

To: Defrocked who wrote (6515)	8/7/1998 3:14:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10921

Weakness is strength in the politics of scapegoating By Peter Hartcher, Asia-Pacific Editor Japan's policymakers are angry and frustrated at the growing threat they face from China. A senior official in Japan's Government puts it this way: "The Chinese are threatening us with their weakness." How can weakness be a threat? The Japanese official explains: "There is an implicit threat from the Chinese. In effect, they say to us, 'You must fix your economy, you must repair your banking system, you must support your currency, and if you do not, then our economy will collapse'." The result? Japan would take the rap for China's difficulties. China would emerge blame-free. China has played the politics of the Asian crisis brilliantly. So the President, Jiang Zemin, was able to say in June: "China has contributed positively to easing the Asian financial crisis. China has taken risks and paid a price. "This is manifested in China's adherence to the policy of not devaluing the RMB [the renminbi, China's currency] and its provision of assistance totalling more than $4bn for Indonesia, the Republic of Korea and Thailand." Jiang went on to contrast China's virtue with Japan's sins: "The economies of the world are increasingly interrelated . . . the weakening of the yen and other currencies will inevitably have an impact on China's exports and other economic activities." Jiang's point is correct, of course. Japan holds the rest of Asia's economies hostage. Japan's failure to arrest its twin crises - the crises of the economy and of the banks - has sent the yen into persistent decline. And, when the yen falls, it takes the rest of Asia's currencies and economies down for the ride. If China threatens Japan with its weakness, then Japan threatens China with its complacency. There is a clear relationship between the movement in the yen and the market value of China's companies. On the face of it, there is no obvious reason for this relationship because the two countries do not compete with each other in export markets. William Overholt, the head of Asia research at BankBoston, in Singapore, explains: "China doesn't compete directly with Japan in trade. China makes basic things and Japan produces very sophisticated things. But Japan does compete with Korea, and Korea competes with Japan, so there is an effect through that connection. Likewise, there is a very similar knock-on effect through Taiwan. "Because Japan is a giant, it does have a huge effect." China already has extracted political capital from its successful positioning as a responsible power yet a helpless victim. When US President Bill Clinton visited Beijing in June, it was a direct acknowledgement of China's constructive role in the crisis. And the visit also contained a snub for Japan; it was the first time that an American president had visited China without also visiting its major security ally, Japan. The treasury economist at Bankers Trust in Singapore, Alistair Boyd, interprets more fully the message that the Middle Kingdom has conveyed successfully: "China is saying, 'We are one of the poorer countries of the region, and we are taking on reforms of unprecedented magnitude - reform of our State-owned enterprises, reform of our banking system, and so on. " 'So don't go telling us that we are, in addition, required to change our economic policy settings to rescue the rest of Asia. You have this massively wealthy economy sitting across the water, doing nothing.' " This tension grew considerably more serious on Friday. Japan's new Prime Minister, Keizo Obuchi, disappointed the markets with his policy speech and the yen and other Asian currencies slumped in response. The markets increasingly are concerned that, as the yen falls, China is being drawn into a deadly vortex that will pull it down into a severe banking, economic and political crisis. China will not be the only victim. "Japan is 18 per cent of the world economy," says the chief economist for Deutsche Bank in Tokyo, Dr Ken Courtis. "If Japan continues to contract, then the other countries of the region have no hope of turning their economies around." What about the other big Chinese economy, and the country which so far seems to have survived the Asian crisis best - Taiwan? "Taiwan could be the most brilliantly managed economy in the world, but Japan is 58 times larger," says Dr Courtis. "If Japan fails to get it right, then there is nothing Tawian's brilliance can do to save it." As the yen continues to depress the rest of Asia, China will not be able to escape serious economic damage. But it will have someone to blame. And it is on track to emerge as an economic victim but a political victor. afr.com.au