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Strategies & Market Trends : Telebras (TBH) & Brazil -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: wl9839 who wrote (15256)	5/12/1999 9:25:00 PM
From: md1derful	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22640

WJ: Appreciate the info on ubb..during today's weakness..I did purchase the ubbje's to go along with the jc's and jd's..can you spell,"drive the truck up"..call it blind faith...or gut feeling, who knows..it just seems that as long as the market wants to take her up with each rate cut, then we should be long this puppy come hell or high water..its that simple!!

To: wl9839 who wrote (15256)	5/13/1999 5:35:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Respond to of 22640

Warren, I used to get the daily BS research notes and peridoc stock updates. As you probably know, I'm not one to dwell on conspiracy type theories, but I have questioned the intentions of Deutsche Bank and Bear Stearns for some time. They were amongst some of the big pushers of Brazil and TBH last year. A couple of days before the auction last July they pulled a surprise downgrade or extreme change in price targets. Don't remember which, but they caught the world off guard, and I remember even a guy from DMG who used to post here couldn't provide a reasonable explanation for the change. They have made many odd calls since that have led me to quietly believe that many of their public comments regarding Brazil and Brazilian equities maybe self-serving. We noticed a lack of analyst comments after the devaluation. Wonder why? Could it be that most of the big houses (all the guys with absolute doom and gloom predictions in January) went largely short Brazil? Would seemed to be an obvious move to many based on the reports their in-house economists were pumping out. Wonder how many are still betting against the trend after these run-ups. Appreciate your sharing the information. Important to keep up with as many sources as possible. Hopefully I'll have some significant contributions along these lines soon. sf

To: wl9839 who wrote (15256)	5/13/1999 6:23:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Respond to of 22640

Brazil's Unibanco Seguros to insure Itaipu dam Reuters, Thursday, May 13, 1999 at 17:43 SAO PAULO, May 13 (Reuters) - Unibanco Seguros, the insurance arm of local bank Unibanco (SAO:UBBR3), said Thursday it won a two-year contract to insure the world's biggest hydroelectric dam Itaipu, which sits astride the border between Brazil and Paraguay. Unibanco will insure the binational Itaipu dam together with Paraguayan insurance firms Central, Fenix and Mundo. The insurers will pay maximum damage of up to $100 million, for a premium of $1.77 million, Unibanco said. Itaipu currently has power generation potential of 12.6 million kilowatts per hour. The capacity is expected reach 14 million kilowatts per hour in 2001 when two more generators, presently under construction, are completed. The dam produced record power of 89.2 billion kilowatts in 1997 and is responsible for 89 percent of power consumed in Paraguay and 25 percent of Brazilian demand. noriko.yamaguchi@reuters.com)) Copyright 1999, Reuters News Service

To: wl9839 who wrote (15256)	5/13/1999 6:28:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22640

Brazil banker denies insider trading charges ReutersPlus, Thursday, May 13, 1999 at 17:05 BRASILIA, May 13 (Reuters) - The former head of a Brazilian investment bank Thursday denied accusations that he paid a Central Bank informant for confidential information just before January's currency devaluation. Salvatore Cacciola, former president of Banco Marka, told a Senate panel investigating the charges that he did not know any senior Central Bank officials before the currency crisis. Opposition lawmakers question why the Central Bank sold dollars below market rates to Banco Marka and another local investment bank, FonteCindam, the day before it allowed the local currency, the real, to float against the dollar. Central Bank officials say the operations were legal and designed to prevent a currency collapse. Cacciola emphatically denied any accusations of insider trading and blamed the government for forcing the closure of Banco Marka in January. At the time of the devaluation, Banco Marka held dollar futures positions on the BM&F commodities and futures exchange that were 20 times the size of its assets. The Rio de Janeiro-based bank was betting that the government would keep its foreign exchange policy unchanged. The Central Bank said a controlled devaluation of the Brazilian real on Jan. 13, but massive outflows forced it to allow the currency to trade freely against the dollar two days later. "With the change in foreign exchange policy, we lost the bank," Cacciola said in a heated exchange with senators. "On the 13th, Marka woke up with negative assets. It was the saddest day of my life." Cacciola said he flew to Brasilia on the same day to inform the Central Bank of the situation, but he denied having pleaded for help, as reported in local newspapers. In exchange for the official bail-out, Cacciola said he pledged to turn Banco Marka into a non-financial organization and to liquidate all its outstanding debts and financial operations. The Italian-born banker complained he was being hounded by the Brazilian press, which has widely published allegations that he paid a Central Bank informant $125,000 per month for confidential information. The local press also alleged Cacciola had stashed money abroad shortly before his bank went under. News reports focused on his extravagant lifestyle, which includes traveling to work by helicopter. "I lost 100 million reais -- 70 in Brazil and 30 abroad -- with Banco Marka. I lost what I loved most, the bank," he said. Cacciola complained about a police freeze on his assets while the Senate investigation continued and vowed he would bounce back from his current professional crisis. "I am healthy, I am intelligent, I will make money again," he said. Copyright 1999, Reuters News Service