Worlwide recession starting?

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The Nikkei Index just closed below it's 52 week low, at 16386.21, down 21% from it's high. Most of Asia and Europe are following suit. Looks like they don't like what's happening in the U.S., and we're going to be the last to admit we have a serious problem.

-- Hawk (flyin@hi.again), May 22, 2000

Answers

Hawk, Living in a place where microsoft has spit out 600,000 millionaires, I am not in the least unhappy for the stock market going down, because it is still unreasonably high anyway. Maybe then a non millionaire can afford a house around here.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), May 22, 2000.

Hawk, do you mean off 21 percent from its 52-week high? Naz has already lost that much, hasn't it, since March peak? Wall Street opened a bit higher this morning, just long enough for Reuters to put a happy-face story about bargain hunting on the wire, then Dow Jones dropped 50 points and Naz plunged 3+%. But it's early in the day and wild swings plus and minus seem the norm rather than the exception these days. Day to day doesn't concern me as much as the overall trend, and the boost I half-expected to develop this month hasn't shown up and doesn't appear likely anymore. Add the oil situation and yes, recession is probable.

-- Cash (cash@andcarry.com), May 22, 2000.

I agree Cherri, I'd like to see the playing field "leveled".

Cash, not sure when it hit the high, but the Nikkei was up to something like 20,800. I think it was just a couple months ago.

-- Hawk (flyin@hi.again), May 22, 2000.


Some of the poeple have all ready have felt the market. We have been hurting for 2 years. The funny thing is people with money never sees this until it is their turn. Happy landing!

-- ET (bneville@zebra.net), May 24, 2000.

Who cares?

This money wasn't there several years ago before people went hog-wild speculating, and the main people who'll miss it being gone are those who got used to the idea of getting something for nothing.

No troubles here, one way or the other,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), May 24, 2000.



Nikkei just closed at another 1 year low, 16044. Nasdaq will be under 3000 very soon, and the Dow is heading below 10,000, all important support levels.

This is it, it's all downhill from here. The costs of Y2K are taking their toll, slower than expected, but it was inevitable. If you're dumb enough to still be in stocks, cut your losses and bail now.

-- Hawk (flyin@hi.again), May 24, 2000.


Hawk,

You say; If you're dumb enough to still be in stocks, cut your losses and bail now.

That is what they are doing, that is what is bringing the market down and will cause a recession-for the nerwly rich and their unearned profits.

I don't believe the mentality of some of them that thought it would just keep going up and they were smarter than everyone else by buying into it. I wonder how those "instantly rich" people are doing, especially now that a lot of tech stocks are below where they bought in.

Unfortunatly for a lot of them the same mentality that made them think they would get rich quick, made them stay in and try for even more profit instead of getting out when they were ahead. If they had been paying attention or even knew what to look for they would have seen the "Big Boys" getting out in Feb and March and followed suit.

It may take some time but I believe the market will go down until it settles into a reasonable representation of what companies are actually producing. This drop in the market does not reflect a sociatal dive into depression, it is just correcting a false high.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), May 24, 2000.


Nikkei just closed at 16008, has lost 23% in the last 6 weeks, and is now dancing on its key support level.

-- Hawk (flyin@hi.again), May 26, 2000.

http://news.excite.com/news/r/000526/06/economy-japan

Link

UPDATE 4-Miyazawa says GDP glitch may ruin FY99 growth goal

Updated 6:19 AM ET May 26, 2000

By Ami Miyazaki

TOKYO, May 26 (Reuters) - An embarrassing revision to Japan's official statistics may put even the government's meagre growth forecast for the just-ended fiscal year out of reach, Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa said on Friday. Miyazawa, who as recently as last weekend was confident of hitting the target of 0.6 percent growth for the year to March, was forced to backtrack after the government said it would restore some unflattering components it had omitted from an earlier gross domestic product report.

Asked if this meant the GDP goal would be difficult to achieve, Miyazawa told a news conference: "Maybe."

Economic Planning Agency (EPA) chief Taichi Sakaiya, whose agency released the GDP data, said despite the flap he was confident that Japan will eke out some fiscal 1999/2000 growth.

"But as for the digit after the decimal point, at this point I can't say anything," Sakaiya said. This was in line with his oft-stated view that hitting the target precisely is the equivalent of a hole-in- one on the golf course.

The yen remained soft against the dollar as the comments heightened concern about Japan's fragile recovery.

That concern was underscored on Friday when hotel operator Dai-Ichi Hotel Ltd filed for court protection from its creditors with total debt of 115 billion yen ($1.09 billion). It is the sixth listed firm to go under this year, and economists expect more to come in the months ahead.

MINISTERS SAY NO POLITICAL PRESSURE TO CHANGE GDP

Both Sakaiya and Miyazawa firmly rejected suggestions in a New York Times report -- which brought attention to the GDP data gap -- that the statistical tinkering was political.

"I'm sure there was absolutely no political discretion exercised," Miyazawa said. "That would be virtually unthinkable."

Sakaiya also stressed that he has never added "political judgments" to his growth forecasts.

The EPA, in releasing revised October-December GDP data last month, did not follow usual procedure by updating the component for financial institutions' capital spending, which was far worse than the original estimate.

The agency said it could not explain the unprecedentedly large discrepancy -- a three percent decline revised to a 37.7 percent drop -- and did not want to include it until it could confirm the new data.

It said on Thursday it had now confirmed the big drop and would include it in January-March and fiscal 1999/2000 GDP data to be released around June 12. The change will pull October-December GDP down 0.2 percentage point to show a quarter-on-quarter fall of 1.6 percent.

It also means January-March GDP must climb 2.4 percent, rather than 2.0 percent, to hit the full-year target.

Officials were unsure of the reasons for the plunge but said a wave of mergers and millennium computer bug fears could have spurred banks to postpone capital equipment purchases.

Sakaiya admitted the EPA's decision to omit the data was a mistake but said it was not intentional. He said there was always room for officials to make judgments on how to handle unexplained statistics, adding that other countries have similar methods.

LINGERING QUESTIONS ABOUT JAPAN DATA

The latest flap spotlighted long-standing questions about Japanese official statistics. Economists have particularly criticised the reliability of figures on personal consumption, which accounts for 60 percent of total output.

Asked whether the GDP statistics actually reflect Japan's real economic activity, Sakaiya said: "That is the everlasting question. I can say, however, that GDP is better than any existing data (in measuring economic activity)."

Led by a business-sector recovery, Japan is struggling to break a two- year downturn to pull out of its worst postwar slump, but personal consumption remains stubbornly weak as aggressive corporate restructuring fuels job uncertainty at a time of already record high unemployment.

"In the long term, the idea is that the bankruptcies will weed out the weaker firms," said Ron Bevacqua, chief economist at Commerzbank in Tokyo. "But at the moment there's much more destruction than there is creation."

Miyazawa blamed still-limp consumer activity for another fall in consumer prices reported on Friday. Tokyo area consumer prices fell 0.9 percent in May from a year earlier -- a record ninth straight decline -- but were unchanged from April.

-- (M@rket.watching), May 30, 2000.


Hey this works out perfect! Japan will go into recession first so that we can blame our own recession on them. Greenspan will never have to admit he fucked up (not that he ever would anyway).

-- Hawk (flyin@hi.again), May 30, 2000.


I see there being zero growth in Europe for many years, probably gentle decline in GDP from now on

-- richard (richard.dale@onion.com), May 31, 2000.

In this mornings newspaper, I read more interest rate hikes to Follow, even though it looks like it is slowin.

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), June 02, 2000.

Consumer,

That is what I am expecting. Of course the stock market and especially the NASDAQ have been moving UP again the last couple of days. It certainly mystifies me. Interest rates go up and stocks go up in response? Must be the new economy!!!

-- Flash (flash@flash.hq), June 02, 2000.


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