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

To: Vitas who wrote (33630)	11/12/1998 11:49:00 PM
From: Vitas	Respond to of 94695

And one good example of that would be the Dow/dividend ratio. Worked great for a long time until 1992. Hit 3.0, which was supposed to be a sell until it hit 6.0. Well, it stopped working. Vitas

To: Vitas who wrote (33630)	11/13/1998 12:49:00 AM
From: flickerful	Respond to of 94695

RUSSIA: Almost half of 1,500 banks face closure ft 13 nov 98 By John Thornhill in Moscow and Jeremy Grant in London Almost half Russia's 1,500 banks face closure over the next few months because the government does not have enough money to save them, Andrei Kozlov, the first deputy chairman of the central bank, said on Thursday. The collapse of hundreds of Russian banks could force foreign creditors to write off billions of dollars of additional losses leading to a further credit contraction around the globe. Foreign bankers estimate that, following the devaluation of the rouble, Russian banks may be able only to honour $1bn-$2bn of the $6bn of foreign exchange contracts they signed with western banks. Russian banks may also default on billions of dollars of commercial borrowings and syndicated loans. David Levey, managing director of the sovereign risk unit at Moody's Investors Service, the credit rating agency, said most Russian banks were effectively insolvent and were unlikely to pay their debts to foreign creditors. "There is not much of that money that is going to be coming back. Banks are going to take a hit on this," he said. Many of Russia's banks, which have been devastated by the devaluation of the rouble and the government's default on its domestic debt (GKO) market, could be forced into bankruptcy when a 90-day moratorium on repaying foreign debts expires on November 14. The moment the moratorium is lifted, angry foreign banks - once among the most enthusiastic investors in Russia's nascent financial markets - are likely to go on the offensive to recover their debts through the courts. Lawyers suggest foreign creditors may also intensify their efforts to track down and seize the overseas assets of exposed Russian commercial banks - however tortuous that may prove in practice. In a speech to the parliamentary budget committee, Mr Kozlov said it was essential to find Rbs40bn to support the most important savings and regional banks and preserve the integrity of the banking system. But Mr Kozlov said the central bank's restructuring plan envisaged the closure of 720 private banks. Mr Kozlov estimated the central bank would need to inject Rbs141bn into Russia's crisis-stricken banks to keep the entire industry afloat. "However, we do not have such money," Mr Kozlov said. Some of Russia's biggest commercial banks, such as Tokobank and Inkombank, have already collapsed amid huge losses. But creditors have found it almost impossible to salvage any assets because of the opacity of Russian banks' accounts and the difficulties of enforcing contracts in local courts. They also allege that some Russian banks have used the cloak of the 90-day moratorium to strip their banks of remaining assets. "Nobody knows what is left," said one Moscow lawyer.