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To: sand wedge who wrote (8344)	4/22/1999 9:38:00 PM
From: Thean	Respond to of 14427

Pete, For some reasons the street has not given RIG the kind of respect it used to get. RIG has been the third fiddle to ATW and DO as far as they were valued recently by the street. I really don't have any inside track on RIG. Its earning is one of the most consistent and together with DO (and maybe ATW) hasn't really suffered because of their longer term contracts with their deepwater outfits. With oil at $18 now and threatening to go higher, I think oil and the drillers are near the end of the huge move of the past few months. Speculators are pricing in the good OPEC compliance and I think $18 oil is catching OPEC by a big surprise. Did you read the Yamani's article today? The oil producing countries try very much to cheat if possible because their economy is in bad shape. If the OPEC/non-OPEC agreement is to achieve $18 oil by the end of summer, what's wrong with cheating a little more when oil is already $18 now? The speculators will soon create this fear on the street and oil price will retreat after the first sign of OPEC cheat numbers are out. I expect the numbers to be good - meaning a compliance of at least 80% in April. If you look around the global demand, it is not surging but growing as expected. The hype about Asian economy is for the purpose of sucking in short term investment dollars to invest there for quick gains, not about a real spurt starting. I recently read the Far Eastern Economic weekly consensus on the growth of all Asian countries and the numbers are still clear that they have reached a bottom but there is still no sign that they are growing at the old clip this year or next year. Again and again indicators still pointing to the over-capacity burden which they have to work off first. This is a massive burden to the economy that won't get fixed overnight. If you know anyone there, just ask how many commercial properties still left unoccupied? It was brought about by years of mismanagement and greed. The countries that received IMF fundings (S Korea, Thailand, Indonesia) basically had mortgaged part of their national properties to the West in in exchanged for short term cash infusion. Sure they are faring much better now but the real beneficiary is the Western capitalist states. Do you realize that the interest on IMF funding is somewhere around 20% per annum? Yeah, more expensive than taking a credit card loan. <GG> Investing in Asian market for short term gain is one thing. Superficially thinking that this is the beginning of another wave of 10% annual growth deserves to be disappointed later. Sand, It is tough to rotate into an uncovered sector. I wouldn't put more money into the drillers. I have a put on WFT and still think a downside is more likely than upside in the next two weeks. I may be wrong because I have no clue what oil will do in the next two weeks. I think this market is going to have a tough time to sustain its present maniac pace when we are nearing the end of the earning season. How about that SEBL and CLFY and MERQ? Sweet vengience indeed.