Carolina Power & Light is preparing a $400 million bond offering. This is significant in that it is twice as large as the next largest offerings I am aware of from CP&L. It has had several $200 million offerings in the past.

Nothing earthshattering, just a barely audible leitmotif to the theme established by AT&T's massive record setting $8 billion offering.

When does AT&T sign a world's record promissory note? Not when it expects interest rates to fall, that's for sure.

When does Goldman Sachs sell its precious franchise to hoi polloi like you and me? Not when it thinks its earnings are going to skyrocket, that's for sure.

PNG has posted an interesting scenario in which Japan not only stops buying Treasuries, but begins selling off its holdings, not in an effort to time the market, but simply in an effort to save its economy.

Whether PNG's scenario plays out as written does not change the fact that a number of complex waves are converging on the shore of our existence. A US stock market bubble, a multi-lateral shooting war in the Balkans, y2k computer problems, desparation in North Korea, increasing hardship on Russian people, a tempestuous Russian leader in fragile health, economic turmoil in Asia and South America, nuclear saber rattling in India, increasing dissemination of weapons of mass destruction amongst those who would use them aggressively, to name some of the most glaring risks.

My hunch is that AT&T, CP&L and others seeking cash infusions are right; Money is going to become more coveted within the foreseeable future. I'm not going to try to predict why. The stock market at current rates is discounting nothing but perfection. I do not see a world which justifies that interpretation.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 25, 1999

Answers

CP&L's 8K document filed with SEC can be found at:

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/17797/0000950168-99-000774.txt

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 25, 1999.