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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (7359)	11/1/1998 12:26:00 PM
From: Paul Berliner	Respond to of 9980

Kyocera is in serious trouble. The stengthening of the yen will kill this co. more than sony or hitachi because of their poor mgmt., unfathomable debt levels and obsolete higher-margin product line. Increased losses in non-core business ventures have also punished shareholders. Also, they will be one of the big losers in the chip pricing wars which just got a whole lot tougher for Asia since the yen rally (which also strengthened the Taiwan Dollar and Korean Won substanitally vs. the dollar. Another big loser is euro chipmaker sgs thomson (now STM micro).

To: Sam who wrote (7359)	11/1/1998 12:36:00 PM
From: Ramsey Su	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 9980

Sam, I don't know if any of these pillars of Japan Inc. will fail. They probably fall in the "too big too fail" category. What I do remember is how companies like Canon reported the benefits of a weak yen during the June 98 quarter. The yen was mid 140s back then and it is a full 25% higher now. None of these companies your mentioned are immune to the negative effects of a strong yen. In fact, they may be at the forefront. I still find no reason, other than behind the scene intervention by the Japanese government, the US government and the hedge funds, why the yen is so high. Reading through various forums here, I am surprised by the bullish tone and complacency. Both the TA and the FA camps point to higher and better times ahead. As per the Greenspan/Yardeni model, they determined that during August, the US market was 10% overvalued. With even lower earnings projections now and a relatively similar price level, how over valued is the market today? I see a big bubble and wondering where is it going to burst? Could it be Brazil, China, Korea, Japan, all of the above? Ramsey