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To: John Mansfield who wrote (28420)	2/17/1999 12:11:00 AM
From: paul ross	Respond to of 116764

Explanation I heard was that a big silver player (some rumored it was Buffet) took all his silver off the lease market. This sent lease rates surging, and then the silver was sold.

To: John Mansfield who wrote (28420)	2/17/1999 12:26:00 AM
From: Alex	Respond to of 116764

Japan on the road to ruin, say Warburg analysts By Jim Parker SYDNEY, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Japan is on the road to ruin, which no amount of pump priming or monetary easings can avoid, senior Japanese analysts from broker Warburg Dillon Read said here on Wednesday. The policy shift towards a weaker yen announced this week would only postpone the eventual day of reckoning, they said. ''The Japanese government is stumbling on the road to ruin. It's too late, there's no way out,'' Warburg's Japanese political analyst Shigenori Okazaki told a media briefing. The consequence for financial markets was a ''sell Japan'' scenario, starting with equities, then bonds and finally the Japanese yen. ''The hole is so deep right now that it's becoming very difficult to think of a positive risk case for Japan,'' Warburg's senior forex/interest rates strategist Cameron Umetsu said. 'Monetisation', the process of printing money to cover the flood of government bond issuance, was now inevitable, although would be introduced gradually, Umetsu said. ''It's a question of when, not if,'' he said. ''They are heading towards a major shift in the policy regime which is essntially yen negative.'' The yen went into reverse on Tuesday after Japan policymakers publicly encouraged a weaker currency and acted to ease a glut in the government bond market. The dollar stood at 118.10/20 yen by 0400 GMT on Wednesday, compared with 118.65/70 yen in New York late on Tuesday. The dollar surged more than three yen in New York overnight, its biggest one-day gain in a month, to reach 118.90 yen, its highest point since December 9, when it traded at 119.45 yen. In an interview with Reuters Television on Tuesday, Ministry of Finance official Eisuke Sakakibara said the G7 would also accept a weaker yen as a result of the BOJ's credit easing last Friday. ''Sakakibara's comments yesterday certainly suggest that reality is biting,'' Umetsu said. However, the policy change carried major dangers in raising the risk of capital flight, a sovereign debt downgrading and stagflation. ''The whole idea of a 110-120 comfort zone for dollar-yen has gone out the window,'' Umetsu said. ''It's very dangerous to assume that the yen in a monetisation scenario will weaken gradually. This will reinforce the perception that dollar-yen is a one-way bet north.'' Depreciation of the yen would also take the pressure off policymakers to restructure the Japanese economy to stimulate consumer demand. ''The whole question of structural reform is off the table again,'' Umetsu said. Okazaki said monetisation offered the easy way out for the Japanese government, whose economic stimulus measures, concentrated on wasteful public works spending, had backfired. He predicted the government would resort to massive tax hikes after the next general election, sending the economy into a long and deep recession. ''The current policies are not going to lead to an autonomous recovery,'' Okazaki said. ''Japan is like the Titanic. You can keep pouring in fuel, but the boat is still going to sink.'' biz.yahoo.com