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

To: Stitch who wrote (6689)	8/16/1998 3:06:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10921

Blood is on the streets? Real blood? U.S. Stock Investors Rattled by Asian Economic Upheaval, Russian Woes (Repeats for Monday newspapers. First moved Friday.) New York, Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) -- As stocks soared in recent years, investors said one thing that could surely derail the bull market would be an ''exogenous shock'' such as a major financial collapse abroad. Now, with Asian economies in recession and Russia teetering on collapse, ''exogenous shocks'' are going off around the world. And stocks from New York to Kuala Lumpur have tumbled. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 9.8 percent since it peaked July 17, a decline that almost qualifies as a so- called ''correction.'' Out of 57 major stock markets, only the Costa Rican, Israeli and Indonesian benchmark indexes eked out gains during the past month, in dollar terms. The other 54 declined, led by Russia's stock market index, off 37 percent. U.S. investors are in the midst of a fierce debate about what turmoil abroad means for the domestic market. Goldman Sachs & Co. investment strategist Abby Joseph Cohen has said for the past two weeks that investors are overreacting, and that profits will keep growing enough to support higher stock prices. Yet even after assurances from the market's most accurate analyst, investors remain rattled. ''I'm close to being in the Abby camp,'' said Uri Landesman, a money manager with J.P. Morgan Investment Management who oversees about $1 billion. ''But the possibility of a total meltdown, particularly in Japan, is still real. The big issue is some sort of global collapse if Japanese institutions have serious trouble.'' Landesman, for one, doesn't expect a financial collapse in Japan -- but he said it's impossible to rule out. For the week, the Dow fell 2.0 percent, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index dropped 2.5 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite Index lost 3.1 percent. The Dow fell four out of five days, and swung widely. It fell 1.3 percent Tuesday, rose 1.1 percent Wednesday and retreated 1.1 percent Thursday. Earlier this year there were many weeks in which the Dow didn't swing 1 percent for a single day. Cohen and the World Investors' concerns, this week at least, can be summed up in two words: ''Japan'' and ''Russia.'' Japan's economy, the world's second-largest, probably will contract 1.7 percent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. Declining demand undermines U.S. exports. And a collapse of Japanese banks, which are weighed down by billions of dollars in bad loans, would roil markets around the world. Russia's stock, bond and currency markets tumbled this year as investors fretted that Moscow will devalue the currency. Investors and traders are concerned that a financial collapse in Russia could further undermine the Japanese economy. ''It's a clich, that traders don't like to hold stocks over the weekend,'' said Ed Laux, co-head of equities at ABN-Amro Inc. ''But it's true that people don't want to hold stocks because they don't know what will happen in Russia. There's a heightened level of uncertainty. A lot can happen when you're on the beach or the golf course or on the tennis court.'' What Global Recession? Yet Cohen told her clients on a conference call on Thursday that a global recession is nowhere in sight. ''What's happening in Russia is important for Russia,'' Cohen said in an interview Friday. ''But regarding all of the former Soviet Union combined -- that whole area takes in less than 1 percent of U.S. exports. The order of magnitude of trade to Russia is statistically so small that it doesn't mater to the U.S.'' Cohen added that while trade with Asia accounts for one- third of U.S. exports, it makes up just 4 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. Cohen said operating earnings for companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index grew 6 percent in the second quarter of the year. While steel and energy companies are getting pummeled amid declining commodity prices, ''much of our trade involves advanced technology manufactured goods, computer software, entertainment and publishing, and high-level services,'' she wrote to clients. ''Many of these items are not overly sensitive to the general level of global economic activity.'' Still, in the most recent quarter virtually every one of the 30 stocks in the Dow average -- from J.P. Morgan & Co. and American Express Co. to DuPont Co. -- said the slowdown in Asia affected their results. bloomberg.com

To: Stitch who wrote (6689)	8/16/1998 3:14:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10921

'What's happening in Russia is important for Russia,'' Cohen said in an interview Friday. ''But regarding all of the former Soviet Union combined -- that whole area takes in less than 1 percent of U.S. exports. The order of magnitude of trade to Russia is statistically so small that it doesn't mater to the U.S.'' bloomberg.com Do we live on the same planet? Mrs. Cohen surely must know Germany interest visa-vi Russia and chain reaction that Russian situation would exert on Eastern Europe and Latin America...Surely she can't discount a danger of civil unrest in Russia (never mind nuclear weapons, how about aging Nuclear plants ala Chernobyl in a country running-out of money..The biggest export of USA to Russia are Dollars (many more dollars would be needed than meazly 1% of unwise exports....