{"id":740,"date":"2004-03-08T15:05:29","date_gmt":"2004-03-08T20:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2004\/03\/overvalued\/"},"modified":"2004-03-08T15:05:29","modified_gmt":"2004-03-08T20:05:29","slug":"overvalued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2004\/03\/overvalued\/","title":{"rendered":"Overvalued"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday’s New York Times<\/i> had a piece warning that Chinese Internet stocks might be in a bubble<\/a> similar to the one the U.S. had in 2000:<\/p>\n

SHARES of three Chinese Internet portals have been among the highest fliers on the Nasdaq market recently, tripling in value over the last 12 months.
\nBut some financial analysts warn that the Chinese stocks are likely to fall sharply, much as American Internet stocks did in 2000.
\n“The bubble is going to burst,” said Andy Xie, a Morgan Stanley economist based in Hong Kong. “It’s going to be bad.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, Warren Buffet thinks the U.S. dollar will continue to take a hit<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Warren Buffett, the American investment guru and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, has issued a fresh warning over the way the US is deluging the world with dollars to fund its huge trade deficit.
\nIn his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, the world’s second wealthiest man says the consequences of this could be “troublesome”, reaching far beyond the currency markets. He also discloses that Berkshire is loading up with foreign currency to offset its exposure to the dollar.
\n“Prevailing exchange rates will not lead to a material let-up in our trade deficit. So whether foreign investors like it or not, they will continue to be flooded with dollars,” Mr Buffett writes.
\nAlthough Mr Buffett said the bulk of Berkshire’s $120bn in net worth would continue to be held in US assets, such as its stakes in Coca-Cola and American Express, the company was spreading its risk by increasing its exposure to currencies including the euro. “Berkshire holds many billions of cash-equivalents denominated in dollars. So I feel more comfortable owning foreign exchange contracts that are at least a partial offset to that position,” he tells shareholders. In 2002, the company took a deliberate decision to increase its holdings of junk bonds denominated in euros and now owns $1bn worth of these.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to news reports, Buffet is making a $12 billion bet against the dollar. [His annual report and shareholder letter are available here<\/a>.]
\nIf Buffet is correct (I just heard currency “gurus” on CNBC talking about the dollar falling to $1.35-1.40\/euro range), it won’t do much to help gas prices. The “stealth tax” continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday’s New York Times had a piece warning that Chinese Internet stocks might be in a bubble similar to the one the U.S. had in 2000: SHARES of three Chinese Internet portals have been among the highest fliers on the Nasdaq market recently, tripling in value over the last 12 months. But some financial analysts […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}