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To: donald sew who wrote (53299)	9/19/1998 9:43:00 AM
From: Jack of All Trades	Respond to of 58727

WOW that guy seems very nervous.

To: donald sew who wrote (53299)	9/19/1998 12:46:00 PM
From: j g cordes	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 58727

Morning Don.. the world has changed dramatically in the last six months. I'd like to address a conceptual hurdle many find difficult to get over. Some people have difficulty understanding the importance of world trade. They don't see the connection between trade and prosperity. Somehow they rationalize that its OK if SKorea and Asia fall, or for Russia to drop back into the middle ages... some think it has nothing to do with the United States. That may have been true in the 1800's but not today. Prosperity's confidence echoes at the speed of light and affects us all. First, America is dependent on other countries' success in creating sustainable markets, otherwise our own markets and prosperity suffer. America is dependent on other countries getting richer and raising their standards of living, in trade, inn commerce, in communication and exchange. The world is a co-dependent economic factory that needs to keep working. Its clear that investor confidence directly relates to how people decide to hire, pay, spend their time and money, travel, be expansive or contract. General wealth relies on confidence, its the difference between a market PE of 3 or 21. I like to think of PE as meaning "Performance Expectations" not price to earnings ratio. The "PE" (performance expectations) of Asia, Russia, Latin America and Africa are low... there is a retraction of initiative and hope. Congress is myopic. In failing to fund the IMF it demonstrated a loss of confidence not only in US policy, but also our loss of confidence in other nations being able to pull themselves up through financial assistance and structural remedy. Because these IMF remedies are an extension of our philosophical belief in free markets and democracy, parts of the world must wonder if America still believes those values are important when the chips are down. Congress failed the IMF strictly for short term partisan reasons. The world's confidence and faith in a free market system must exceed the short term failings of politicians. Jim

To: donald sew who wrote (53299)	9/19/1998 1:18:00 PM
From: Ramsey Su	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 58727

Don, long term lurker and appreciates your Index Updates like so many here. Never felt there is much on the TA stuff that I can contribute so I don't post. The bearish sentiments are picking up steam these days. A contrarian may suggest that this is the best time to buy, when visibility is poor and panic selling rules the day. A number of posts ago you mentioned AMG Data's mutual fund inflows. I have followed that site for a while and find it unfortunate that the fee based portion is prohibitively expensive for the individual investor. However, I find the information posted ever Thursday afternoon very helpful, though delayed somewhat. Here are some of my observations: Period ------------ Average Weekly Mutual fund inflow Jan 1,98 to 9/16 --------- $1,826 billion 1st quarter 1998 --------- $2,444 billion 2nd quarter 1998 --------- $2,167 billion 3rd quarter 1998 --------- $838 million (2 more weeks to complete qtr) Trim Tabs reported August 98 being the first qtr since Sept 1990 that mutual fund has net outflow of $2.7 billion. Aside from AMG and TrimTabs, there is another service, ICI, that provides mutual funds inflow data. Unfortunately, all three services never report the same numbers for the same time periods, sometimes with wide discrepancies. Nevertheless, the AMG data clearly indicates a downtrend in inflows. Is it adequate to confirm a panic selling is occurring, as some of the wall street bulls want us to believe and suggest this is the best time to buy? I opine that we are not even close. My guess is when we see the AMG data turns negative for a few weeks, in at least the ($5 billion) outflow range, then we may start calling it panic selling. Changing subjects. Regarding the tick that you mentioned last week, I still don't see the correlation or the significance to the indices. While it is logical that a big positive tick should result in a strong up market, or vice versa, what purpose does it serve as an indicator? Care to enlighten? Ramsey