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Strategies & Market Trends : Waiting for the big Kahuna -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: William H Huebl who wrote (28415)	9/20/1998 10:31:00 AM
From: flickerful	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 94695

Shell warns of worldwide crisis ft/saturday sept 19 By Robert Corzine Royal Dutch/Shell, the international oil group, yesterday warned of a sharp deterioration in trading conditions as the impact of the Asian economic crisis was increasingly affecting other regions and markets. Mark Moody Stuart, group chairman, said the slowdown in the Asia-Pacific region "seems to be spreading to other parts of the world". In a speech to fund managers in San Francisco, he warned: "Overall we expect that the business environment in the second half of the year will be significantly worse than in the first half." Last month, he said the group had begun to see the effect of the Asian crisis in many unexpected ways. Mr Moody Stuart announced the closure of Shell's national headquarters in the UK, the Netherlands, France and Germany. Shell officials said it was an assault on the powerful "country barons" in northern Europe who have long resisted radical change at the group. It was also a signal to employees that even the most entrenched traditions at Shell will be challenged in the quest to improve the group's performance. Analysts said Shell, which operates in more than 120 countries, was one of the best industrial bellwethers to the state of the global economy. The company, which has been the most pessimistic this year in assessing oil market and macroeconomic trends, has concluded that the outlook across its main businesses was almost uniformly gloomy. Crude oil prices for the full year were likely to average "considerably less" than $15 a barrel, against more than $19 last year, Mr Moody Stuart said. Refining and chemical margins were also being squeezed. He warned that crude oil prices "could stay depressed at levels between $12 and $16 per barrel" for two to three years. Analysts said that would be good news for containing global inflation, but it would put more financial pressure on the main producing countries, some of which already face social and political unrest because of a collapse in their oil revenues. Mr Moody Stuart admitted that Shell was now unlikely to meet its target set last May of achieving a 12 per cent to 12.5 per cent return on average capital. Yesterday's statement was a marked departure from Shell's previous practice of only grudgingly providing detailed information to investors. Shell officials said they were concerned that analysts' expectations of the group's future performance were diverging sharply from the business reality it was confronting around the world. They also acknowledged a failure on their part to "manage investor expectations" and said the statement marked a new chapter in the company's transformation. The group provided no details of job losses or changes in the organisation structure arising from the closures of the European national headquarters.

To: William H Huebl who wrote (28415)	9/20/1998 11:02:00 AM
From: Vitas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 94695

So far, I think the comparison to the final stages of the '90 bear remain intact. Just as in August-September '90, we have resistance at the trading low of the first day the market broke through previous support on the second leg down (wave 3 in Elliott). The overall chart patterns are very similar. August 27, 1998 NYA low was 517.00 SPX low was 1037.61 DJI actual low was 8164.96 If I had to use one index, the NYA is the most credible, and NYA closed at 518.05 Wednesday Indicators of various sorts have gotten close to being the bottom (relative to bear markets), but not quite yet. Therefore, I would expect at least one more retest of recent lows sometime relatively soon. It may very well be one more retest, because some of the oscillators are one stage ahead of the '90 situation. Using TC2000 over 200% MA figures as a reference, I would expect that +/- 20% would be a ceiling, short term, and that the final low might be in the +/- 10% area. Vitas