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Strategies & Market Trends : Graham and Doddsville -- Value Investing In The New Era -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Freedom Fighter who wrote (1175)	2/1/1999 9:39:00 PM
From: Wren	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1722

Today's Wall Street Journal has an article about the online trading addiction. It cites some behaviorial health-care facilities that have begun to see some online trading addicts. It give the story of a 28 year old bank employee who quit, borrowed $40,000 on his credit cards and set out to make his fortune. In two months he was wiped out and deep in debt and moved back in with his parents. One addiction expert said more online trading addicts will come out of the woodwork when the bubble busts. Right now they don't know they have a problem. They think they are geniuses.

To: Freedom Fighter who wrote (1175)	2/4/1999 9:06:00 PM
From: porcupine --''''>	Respond to of 1722

Economic Data Signal Strong Growth February 4, 1999 By The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- The strongest surge in factory orders in more than a year, an unexpected dip in applications for unemployment benefits and big sales gains at America's retailers all show the economy is starting 1999 with a bang. During the final three months of 1998, the economy grew at a robust 5.6 percent pace, the strongest in 2 1/2 years, and it looks as if the momentum carried over into the new year. Orders to U.S. factories jumped 2.3 percent in December, the biggest increase in 13 months, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Meanwhile, the number of Americans filing first-time applications for unemployment benefits fell by 9,000 to a six-week low of 292,000 last week, the Labor Department said. And major retail chains reported in New York that January proved to be a better-than-expected month as shoppers snatched up discounted merchandise. ''Consumers have everything they need to justify spending with gusto and they are devouring everything in sight,'' said economist Sung Won Sohn of Wells Fargo in Minneapolis. ''They have jobs, income and confidence. What more do they need?'' At a two-day private meeting that ended on Wednesday, Federal Reserve policy-makers decided to leave short-term interest rates unchanged despite signs of economic boom. Minutes released Thursday of an earlier meeting, Dec. 22, revealed that policy-makers thought the outlook for 1999 was ''subject to an unusually wide range of uncertainty in both directions.'' But the minutes said that if they determined the economy was running too fast, they had ''time to react to potential inflationary pressures.'' However, many economists, including Sohn, worry the economy is overheating, developing imbalances that include an overvalued stock market and labor shortages. On Thursday, the Dow Jones average of industrial stocks fell 62 points to 9,304.50. President Clinton's economic advisers, in their annual report, predicted the economy's longest peacetime expansion will continue through the year. But the Council of Economic Advisers said growth will slow to 2.4 percent in 1999, down from 3.9 percent in 1998, as recessions in one-third of the world push the U.S. trade deficit higher. Manufacturing has been among the U.S. sectors hardest hit by the world slump, but if the December report is an indication, it is recovering. ''Clearly, manufacturing was not in recession in the last quarter and certainly is not now,'' said economist Jerry Jasinowski, president of the National Association of Manufacturers. ''This strength is clearly visible in the orders numbers, which have increased in six of the last seven months.'' However, the impact of the global slump was clearly visible in orders for all of 1998, which rose just 2.1 percent to $4.03 trillion. That compared with a healthy 5.4 percent gain in 1997 and was the weakest year since orders posted a 2.3 percent decline during the recession year of 1991. The weakness was particularly pronounced at U.S. blast furnaces and steel mills, which are competing with cheap steel imported from Russia, Brazil and Korea. Their orders fell 12.5 percent, the biggest decline in at least 15 years. And the increase for aircraft was anemic, 0.2 percent. On the bright side, however, orders for computers and office equipment surged 19.4 percent, the biggest gain in 14 years. Orders for communications equipment jumped 12.1 percent. And they jumped 6.9 percent for stone, clay and glass products, reflecting a building boom spurred by low interest rates.