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Greenspan: We've seen this turmoil before

Report: Economic bubbles can't be defused through interest rate adjustments, he suggests in speech.

September 7 2007: 1:34 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) -- "The human race has never found a way to confront bubbles," Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Thursday in reference to the euphoria that can precede contractions, or reactions, like the current market turmoil, according to a published report.

Greenspan, speaking to economists in Washington, D.C., compared the turmoil to that of 1987 and in 1998, when the giant hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management nearly collapsed, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site.

"The behavior in what we are observing in the last seven weeks is identical in many respects to what we saw in 1998, what we saw in the stock-market crash of 1987, I suspect what we saw in the land-boom collapse of 1837 and certainly [the bank panic of] 1907," Greenspan said at the event organized by the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, according to the Journal.

Greenspan, now a private consultant, said euphoria takes over when the economy is expanding and leads to bubbles, "and these bubbles cannot be defused until the fever breaks," the Journal said.

Bubbles can't be defused through incremental adjustments in interest rates, he suggested, the paper reported. The Fed doubled interest rates in 1994-95, and "stopped the nascent stock-market boom," but when stopped, stocks took off again. "We tried to do it again in 1997," when the Fed raised rates a quarter of a percentage point, and "the same phenomenon occurred."

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Bush to propose subprime plan

President will discuss initiatives for helping troubled mortgage holders keep their homes, make call for stronger lending practices.

August 31 2007: 4:02 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush will make a statement Friday morning in the Rose Garden about homeownership financing, a senior administration official said Thursday.

The statement is scheduled for 11 a.m.

"The president will discuss a number of initiatives and reforms intended to help homeowners with subprime mortgages keep their homes," the official said. "He will also discuss reform efforts to prevent these kinds of problems from arising in the future."

Bush will direct Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson to team up to help troubled mortgage holders get the services and products they need to avoid defaulting on their loans, the official said.

He will also push Congress to pass Federal Housing Administration legislation that will give the agency more flexibility to assist mortgage holders with subprime loans, the official said.

The need for rigorous enforcement of predatory lending laws and stronger, more transparent lending practices are also on the agenda for the statement, the official said.

"He will discuss his willingness to work with Congress in a bipartisan way on legislation to reform the tax code to help troubled borrowers rework their loans," he said.

Risky loans have fueled a rise in foreclosures and forced some lenders to shut down or file for bankruptcy themselves. Foreclosure filings, which include default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions, in July were up 9 percent over June - and 93 percent over July 2006.

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Beware of the trading trap......Trading range 63cents to 66cents.......

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Look at today push by the BBs is the faded one.....

Tomorrow, all the BBs will throw at 60cents...........and worst that below 50cents......WHY ?

So that all holding rights at 1cents + 60cents will have to any how dump and Bbs will stay at the side line to fish the bottom fish........

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BBs are in now to push up the prices......today will push up at least to 70 cents......

Institutional buyers will then willing to buy their rights at 60cents........looking at this price is still attractive.......Buy before becoming history.....

CHEERS !

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Rumours that Rotary also involved leh.......

Hope tomorrow they will halt and anounce the good news.......

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ROWSLEY Ltd's reverse takeover by Chinese solar energy firm Perfect Field Investment has been delayed, said the firm yesterday....

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What is the actual bad news.......that lead to the price drop ????

Anyone care to post and share...... What will be the impact......or it is the opportunity to buy at low.....

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Contra player still can wait till the settlement date then the broker will call you up for payment.

Settlement date is T + 3 + 1 which meant that if you buy at Monday, next Monday your broker will then call you for payment.......They cannot ask you to pay up first if the settlement date is not due....

Broker is not your god father, ta meng mei you na mo hao shi.....

They are like banker, Sunny day lend you umbrella, Raining day they will quickly take back the umbrella.....

This is real life.....bo pian...

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Read from somewhere that Lian Beng had won 50m sub-contracts for IR in the recent bids......

Why there is no anouncement in SGX yet........?

Anyone got any news on this.......

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DMG Lifts Penny Stock Trade Curbs;UOB-Sesdaq +2.8%

0229 GMT [Dow Jones] Demand for Singapore penny shares may pick up again

soon after DMG's withdrawal of trading curbs on 16 stocks. "Today

they've just lifted it. Everything is back to normal," says trader at

foreign house. Brokerage last Friday banned contra trading on popular

stocks like Equation (532.SG), Jade Technologies (530.SG), BBR (562.SG),

Rowsley (A50.SG); also required deposits into trust accounts for

outright buying of S$20,000 and more. "The timing (of the lifting) is

questionable, but the intention is good because a lot of people buy

these penny stocks by the hundreds. They (DMG) may have thought that if

the market is low, some of these fellas will jump in crazily and get hit

again," trader adds. Overall market volume in past weeks has been

sharply lower partly due to trading curbs on penny stocks imposed by

several houses. Volume today modest.

UOB-Sesdaq +2.8% at 216.90. (FKH)

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BBs start to dump their holding plus shortist in progress.....This Gem is going back to below 40cents...again......

S H I T .......Man,,,,,,,

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Beware of this Gem..........Profit warning not over yet.....

Suspect the BBs going to take this opportunity to run out......Do not fall into this trap..........

Chances of down more than up..... TAKE PROFIT if you can.

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I think this should only apply to Jeng Hu personnel.......cos they are more long life.

Like us lao bai xin where got long life cos bo lui jia po leh......

85 years old then get.......some ppl say it looks like jeng hu give pei kim hor......

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With the mother share now trading at 68cents, the Right issue should be at the value of 2cents leh cos after buying the right you need to top up another 66cents for Mother share....

Those who buy R at 6 or 6.5cents is very the HAI GONG leh......

Who wanna to buy the Right at 6 cents with the top up of 66 cents then to have the total cost of 72cents for Mother share, whereas now you only pay for 68cents to get the mother shares...

Siao right.....

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Next victim of mortgage mess: Auto sales

Rising concern about home values and mortgage payments is causing more buyers to slam the brakes on new car purchases.

By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer

August 21 2007: 6:26 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Already-battered U.S. auto sales could be the next victim of the problems with mortgages, declining home and stock prices as potential car buyers delay purchases due to uncertainty.

Industrywide U.S. auto sales in August could be off 10 percent from a year ago, according to an early read from sales tracker Edmunds.com. That follows July sales that were 19 percent below year-earlier levels.

Jesse Toprak, executive director of industry analysis for Edmunds.com, said that the downturn in home values and credit issues that were seen in the July numbers could be an even bigger factor this month.

"I think the issue is becoming more pronounced," he said.

Sales weren't just weak at domestic automakers, such as General Motors (Charts, Fortune 500), Ford Motor (Charts, Fortune 500) and Chrysler Group. Year-over-year sales fell in July at Toyota Motor (Charts) and Honda Motor (Charts) as well. Many forecasters are cutting full-year auto sales targets in the face of these weak summer sales. And some experts say the turmoil in housing could throw even more dirt in the gears.

Import auto sales top Big Three

CNW Research, which specializes in surveys of car buyers, found in its latest reading that 13.6 percent of the potential market's customers were canceling or postponing plans to make a new-vehicle acquisition any time soon, up from 10.1 percent last year.

And of those postponing or canceling plans, home-related issues jumped to the No. 1 reason, cited by 17.6 percent of those staying away from dealers' showrooms, with nearly 11 percent of that group citing a decline in their home equity and another 6 percent citing an increase in their monthly home payment.

Of those postponing purchases, 10.7 percent cited problems with credit scores, as some sources of car loans are tightening lending standards. Gas prices are a distant third, cited by less than 5 percent of those delaying purchases.

"We're probably going to see some pretty bad [auto sales] numbers for the rest of the year," said Art Spinella, president of CNW. "To put it simply, housing is now the major hurdle to new car purchases. The next three to four months are not going to be much better if it's better at all. People are not interested in buying a new vehicle."

Only two years ago, the CNW survey found just 2.3 percent citing home-related issues as a reason to postpone a car purchase, while 5 percent cited credit score problems and about 3 percent cited gas prices.

Automakers, led by GM, are upping cash-back offers and other inducements to try to breathe life into sales in the face of headlines about home foreclosures and market meltdowns.

GM spokesman John McDonald said that GM isn't seeing any sharp drop-off in sales it can trace to the current mortgage and housing slowdown.

"It is one of a number of headwinds," he said. "There's fuel prices, there's interest rates and there's housing prices. But we're not seeing anything new that we've not been talking about for more than a year."

But one auto industry executive, who spoke on condition that his name not be used, said that the higher incentive spending by automakers, particularly on GM pickups, may mask some of the bite that housing is putting on sales.

"The home was not only a source of financing for some car purchases, it contributes to a positive feeling psychologically," said the executive. "That led to a confident outlook, a view that 'I can go ahead and spend from paycheck to paycheck and buy new cars when I want to because the value of my home and portfolio have gone up.'

"It's silliness to say the credit crunch doesn't matter," said the executive. "If the final sales numbers for August have any strength, it will be because of incentives."

Experts in the field say that car purchases are one of the first items that consumers can and will put off if they are nervous about their own financial outlook, long before they'll cut back on eating out or other discretionary purchases.

Bob Schnorbus, chief economist for auto research firm J.D. Power & Associates, said that the August sales probably won't tell the full story about the drag that the housing turmoil is causing for auto sales.

"I wouldn't expect it to have that quick impact; I would expect it to be more of a drag throughout the rest of this year than a plummet in August," he said.

And Schnorbus said that while consumers may keep making other types of purchases, even as they pull back from buying new cars and trucks, the slowdown could spread to other types of spending in the future if the market does not improve.

"A new car is one of the more postponable purchases that people make," said Schnorbus. "That new vehicle purchase could be a good leading indicator if consumers are going to cut back. Over the next few months, we could be getting some very interesting signals."

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Next victim of mortgage mess: Auto sales

Rising concern about home values and mortgage payments is causing more buyers to slam the brakes on new car purchases.

By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer

August 21 2007: 6:26 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Already-battered U.S. auto sales could be the next victim of the problems with mortgages, declining home and stock prices as potential car buyers delay purchases due to uncertainty.

Industrywide U.S. auto sales in August could be off 10 percent from a year ago, according to an early read from sales tracker Edmunds.com. That follows July sales that were 19 percent below year-earlier levels.

Jesse Toprak, executive director of industry analysis for Edmunds.com, said that the downturn in home values and credit issues that were seen in the July numbers could be an even bigger factor this month.

"I think the issue is becoming more pronounced," he said.

Sales weren't just weak at domestic automakers, such as General Motors (Charts, Fortune 500), Ford Motor (Charts, Fortune 500) and Chrysler Group. Year-over-year sales fell in July at Toyota Motor (Charts) and Honda Motor (Charts) as well. Many forecasters are cutting full-year auto sales targets in the face of these weak summer sales. And some experts say the turmoil in housing could throw even more dirt in the gears.

Import auto sales top Big Three

CNW Research, which specializes in surveys of car buyers, found in its latest reading that 13.6 percent of the potential market's customers were canceling or postponing plans to make a new-vehicle acquisition any time soon, up from 10.1 percent last year.

And of those postponing or canceling plans, home-related issues jumped to the No. 1 reason, cited by 17.6 percent of those staying away from dealers' showrooms, with nearly 11 percent of that group citing a decline in their home equity and another 6 percent citing an increase in their monthly home payment.

Of those postponing purchases, 10.7 percent cited problems with credit scores, as some sources of car loans are tightening lending standards. Gas prices are a distant third, cited by less than 5 percent of those delaying purchases.

"We're probably going to see some pretty bad [auto sales] numbers for the rest of the year," said Art Spinella, president of CNW. "To put it simply, housing is now the major hurdle to new car purchases. The next three to four months are not going to be much better if it's better at all. People are not interested in buying a new vehicle."

Only two years ago, the CNW survey found just 2.3 percent citing home-related issues as a reason to postpone a car purchase, while 5 percent cited credit score problems and about 3 percent cited gas prices.

Automakers, led by GM, are upping cash-back offers and other inducements to try to breathe life into sales in the face of headlines about home foreclosures and market meltdowns.

GM spokesman John McDonald said that GM isn't seeing any sharp drop-off in sales it can trace to the current mortgage and housing slowdown.

"It is one of a number of headwinds," he said. "There's fuel prices, there's interest rates and there's housing prices. But we're not seeing anything new that we've not been talking about for more than a year."

But one auto industry executive, who spoke on condition that his name not be used, said that the higher incentive spending by automakers, particularly on GM pickups, may mask some of the bite that housing is putting on sales.

"The home was not only a source of financing for some car purchases, it contributes to a positive feeling psychologically," said the executive. "That led to a confident outlook, a view that 'I can go ahead and spend from paycheck to paycheck and buy new cars when I want to because the value of my home and portfolio have gone up.'

"It's silliness to say the credit crunch doesn't matter," said the executive. "If the final sales numbers for August have any strength, it will be because of incentives."

Experts in the field say that car purchases are one of the first items that consumers can and will put off if they are nervous about their own financial outlook, long before they'll cut back on eating out or other discretionary purchases.

Bob Schnorbus, chief economist for auto research firm J.D. Power & Associates, said that the August sales probably won't tell the full story about the drag that the housing turmoil is causing for auto sales.

"I wouldn't expect it to have that quick impact; I would expect it to be more of a drag throughout the rest of this year than a plummet in August," he said.

And Schnorbus said that while consumers may keep making other types of purchases, even as they pull back from buying new cars and trucks, the slowdown could spread to other types of spending in the future if the market does not improve.

"A new car is one of the more postponable purchases that people make," said Schnorbus. "That new vehicle purchase could be a good leading indicator if consumers are going to cut back. Over the next few months, we could be getting some very interesting signals."

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BEIJING (Reuters) - China raised interest rates on Tuesday for the fourth time this year to stabilize inflation after consumer prices rose in July at the fastest pace in more than a decade.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said it was raising the rate that banks pay for one-year deposits by 27 basis points, to 3.60 percent, and the corresponding benchmark for lending rates by 18 basis points, to 7.02 percent from 6.84 percent.

The increases go into effect on Wednesday.

Although the timing was a surprise, the action itself was not despite turbulence in global markets that has prompted the Federal Reserve to cut its discount rate and hold out the prospect of a reduction in the federal funds rate.

Most economists had forecast an increase, both to anchor inflationary expectations and to reduce the incentive for savers to take their money out of the bank -- where real deposit rates are deeply negative -- and pile into the surging stock market.

"The PBOC is concerned about falling real deposit rates spurring the flow of funds out of deposits into equities. We don't think this is a response to strong growth," said Ben Simpfendorfer, an economist with Royal Bank of Scotland in Hong Kong, said.

Although the economy expanded 11.9 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, Lin Songli, an analyst with Guosen Securities in Beijing, agreed that, by raising lending rates less than deposit rates, the central bank was signaling it was not intending primarily to slow the pace of growth.

"The move is mainly targeting inflation, and the authorities might have reached a consensus that investment growth is not a big problem now," Lin said.

Consumer prices surged 5.6 percent in the year to July, the fastest pace since early 1997, because of a spike in the cost of pork, eggs and other foods.

Although non-food inflation fell to 0.9 percent in July, policy makers are concerned that price increases are already rippling out across the economy.

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Keep buying up, thinking of buying.......anyone can confirm the deal.......dare not go in at this falling moment.......market........is down.......?

But, but, somethings brewing for this counter......today and yesterday.....

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Another buying up

0.535	200,000	Buy Up
	0.535	350,000	Buy Up