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To: E Haiken who wrote (2331)	9/20/1998 8:51:00 AM
From: Tom Hoff	Respond to of 8393

Cadmium glut and price collapse looms By Camila Reed LONDON, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Overwhelming extra supply, declining prices and uses face the cadmium market, said industry and trade sources at an industry conference on Thursday. As zinc producers in the U.S., Canada and Australia crank up output more cadmium will also be produced as by-product. Additional cadmium will also be recycled adding units to an already oversupplied market, Hugh Morrow president of the International Cadmium Association said at the Ryans Notes minor metals conference in London. About 70 percent of cadmium goes into nickel-cadmium batteries used in electric toothbrushes to emergency lighting. But market share in other uses such as pigments and stabilisers was being eroded, Morrow said. Cadmium was fast becoming a one use metal whose main market batteries was also under attack by competing technologies -- nickel-metal-hydride and lithium-ion batteries, he added. In the past electric vehicles using nickel-cadmium batteries had been hailed as a spectacular new market for cadmium. But Morrow told Reuters that total production of electric vehicles was only 5,000-10,000 currently and around 80 percent used lead acid batteries, 10 percent nickel-cadmium and the remainder nickel-metal-hydride. "The Japanese have opted for nickel-metal-hydride in the short term and in the long term they will use lithium-ion," Morrow said. A Japanese battery maker at the conference told Reuters that nickel-cadmium battery output was falling in Japan and production was down at least 10 percent in the first half of this year. But production of the other battery types was rising and up around 20 percent. "The reasons for this are price and performance. The other battery types have fallen in price more than nickel-cadmium batteries have and their performance is superior," he told Reuters. Nickel-cadmium batteries would retain some markets and were increasing their share of the rechargeable battery sector for use in power tools, Morrow said. He urged zinc producers to think of cadmium's plight as a zinc problem. Cadmium prices were seen in terminal decline, said traders at the conference. In the 1980s prices were at $10 a lb. They slumped to an average $1/3 a lb in the early 1990s and were now languishing under $1 at around 20 cents. "It is crazy. We are virtually at the point of having to pay people to take it from us," a zinc producer source told Reuters. "We are in unchartered waters right now," he added. Traders said recent offers were down at two to five cents a lb for lower grade 99.95 percent metal. Pressure from the environmental lobby was especially hurting cadmium's use in Europe, Morrow said. The European Commission is working on a battery directive which aims to ban the use of cadmium in batteries. In 1997 some 19,297 tonnes of cadmium was produced and 18,502 tonnes was consumed, Morrow added. 14:13 09-17-98 Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

To: E Haiken who wrote (2331)	9/21/1998 9:02:00 AM
From: Joe Master	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8393

Apparently those with money in the stock market disagree with you wholeheartedly.

To: E Haiken who wrote (2331)	9/22/1998 3:15:00 PM
From: Ryan Bartholomew	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8393

I agree with you for the most part. There are reasons this stock is trading lower than it was months ago, but IMO, it has been devalued too much. The company is not turning a profit yet, which justifies a relatively low valuation, but their technological prospects and their financial position are superb. On a related topic, since I am anticipating somewhat of a bounce as earnings near and are released early next week, I have accumulated some high-risk October 5 calls (60 contracts in all over the last 3 trading days) because of my feeling that they are extremely undervalued. I will take a bit of a bath if I am incorrect, but I feel it is well worth the risk because of the high potential for an upswing soon (especially if more news about the EV1, etc is released.) My question is this: Today, the bid/ask on the particular options (EQIJA) has been at 13/16 to 13/16 for quite some time. What would explain the lack of a spread? I see this happen occasionally in fast-moving market swings, but not on a prolonged basis like I have seen today. Anyone have an idea? -Ryan