Kriegstrommeln an der Wallstreet - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[Gatsby2]

Eigentlich kann man George Bush kaum ernstnehmen. Seine Pläne hinsichtlich des Irak eigentlich auch nicht.

Aber trotzdem scheint sich an der Wallstreet was zu tun:

Wall Street girds for battle

Wall Street
mavens prepare
portfolios for
Iraq conflict



Members of the Iraqi
military march with a poster
of Iraqi president Saddam
Hussein during a parade
earlier this month in
Baghdad. Wall Street
strategists are
recommending energy and
defense stocks ahead of any
possible U.S. military action
against Iraq.


By Roland Jones
MSNBC

Aug. 22 — When it comes to removing Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein from power, President George
W. Bush may still be searching for the right
strategy, but many of Wall Street’s field generals
are already redeploying their portfolios for the
prospect of U.S. military action against Iraq.

DENT IN CONSUMER CONFIDENCE
An attack on Iraq would reverberate through the U.S.
stock market and economy in several ways, strategists say.



In the short term, the shock of an attack on Iraq would
dent consumer confidence, pushing stock prices lower and
damaging consumer spending, which accounts for about
two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.
The uncertainty surrounding any military action is
certain to cast at least a temporary pall over the U.S. stock
market, now regaining its footing after over two months of
grinding declines triggered by a series of accounting
scandals, dour corporate profits and worries about a weak
economic recovery.
But there are some sectors of the market that are likely
to see some benefit if armed action against Iraq is taken.


A large-scale military conflict is likely to prompt the
U.S. government to increase its defense spending to
replenish supplies, lifting the fortunes of companies in the
defense sector.
And turmoil in the Middle East is sure to send oil prices
surging, as investors worry about a disruption of oil supplies
from the region, which in turn will boost the stock prices of
oil-related companies. In a sign that some are betting on that
outcome, oil prices hit a 15-month high of more than $30 a
barrel this week.

BETTING ON ENERGY SECTOR
A.C. Moore, investment strategist at Dunvegan
Associates, said he is keeping a wary eye on the situation
with Iraq and increasing his holdings in the energy sector.

“Seasonally, this is the right time to buy energy stocks,
as you tend to buy them in the summer and sell them in the
winter, so if there’s no Iraqi invasion it won’t be a harmful
investment,” Moore added.
Alan Ackerman, chief market strategist at Fahnestock,
is also recommending energy stocks, although he prefers to
focus on companies with strong natural gas reserves.
In the defense sector he is buying shares of companies
working on satellite communications, like Lockheed Martin.
“I’m trying to be selective,” Ackerman said. “These are
two areas that I think have the prospect for growth down
the road: Energy is certainly important to the U.S. economy,
and the United States is looking to replenish its military
reserves and boost its intelligence gathering operations
post-Sept. 11.”

In the energy
sector, Chip Hanlon,
president of Unfunds, an
investment consultancy,
advises buying stocks in
the oil-services sector,
which includes names
like Schlumberger and
Baker Hughes.
“These stocks were
annihilated along with
the rest of the market in
July, but they tend to
move up when the price
of oil rises so I have
doing some nibbling
here recently,” Hanlon
said, adding that an
attack on Iraq is likely
to push up oil prices,
boosting the sector.
“I’d sell these
stocks into any rally in
oil prices and buy on any dips in the equity market,” said
Hanlon.

One way to play the
sector is through an
exchange-traded fund that
tracks the oil-services
sector, Hanlon said. One
such fund, the Merrill
Lynch Oil Service
Holders Trust, which trades on the American Stock
Exchange, is down sharply from a 52-week high of over
$75 hit in early May making it an attractive buying
opportunity, he added.

RETAIL SHARES SEEN VULNERABLE

Although he has yet to formulate a concrete strategy,
William Barker, an investment strategy consultant at RBC
Dain Rauscher, says he has been advising his clients to buy
oil and defense stocks.
He’s also recommends dumping cyclical stocks, like
retailers and auto makers. “The consumer tends to sit on his
hands in this sort of situation, so I think we’ll see an impact
on sectors related to consumer spending,” he said.
Barker points to the Gulf War conflict in 1990, when
an allied coalition launched an attack against Iraq to liberate
Kuwait. “Investors stayed at home and watched TV and the
market didn’t really rally until it was certain that we would
win.”
Others, like Hanlon, think an attack on Iraq is already
factored into the market.
“The market came unglued when Iraq invaded Kuwait
in 1990, but it bottomed and turned higher by the time
Desert Shield turned into Desert Storm,” said Hanlon.
“While there may be a few uncertain days for the market, I
see a world without Saddam Hussein as bullish and I think
the market would see it that way too.”

[Gatsby2]

Wallstreet scheint übrigens gar nicht so unrecht zu haben:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/DH29Ak01.html

[Gatsby2]

Die heutige Resolution des UN-Sicherheitsrats hat den Rüstungswerten erneut Auftrieb gegeben.

Weniger beachtet wurden die Nachrichten aus der letzten Woche, namentlich eine Teilmobilmachung der Nationalgarde und die Gerüchte über eine Teilmobilmachung in England.

Kaum beachtet auch diese Nachricht, obwohl es der zweite Konvoy innerhalb von 8 Wochen ist:

Massive Military Cargo Ships Leaving US Ports



LONDON (Reuters) - Three enormous U.S.-military owned cargo ships
capable of carrying tanks have left U.S. shores in recent days, a
U.S. navy (news - web sites) official said on Monday, amid mounting
evidence Washington is building up firepower to attack Iraq.


The latest deployment comes as the aircraft carrier battle group the
USS Constellation set sail for the Gulf from San Diego, California
this past weekend.


The cargo vessels, the USNS Bellatrix, the USNS Bob Hope and the USNS
Fisher, just short of the length of aircraft carriers themselves, are
some of the largest transport ships in the U.S. military`s inventory.


Marge Holtz, director of the Military Sealift Command (MSC), a branch
of the U.S. Navy charged with running the ships on behalf of the U.S.
armed forces, declined comment on the exact destination of the
vessels.

[hic]

Es gibt kein besseres staatliches Konjunkturprogramm, als einen (ergfolgreichen) Krieg !

Nebenbei werden auch riesige Ölvorräte gesichert,
die Russen und Franzosen verlieren zudem ihre
Beteiligungen an den irakischen Ölfeldern !

Schorsch Dabbeljuh wär ja blöd, keinen Krieg zu beginnen !

Ohne den Verbrecher Saddam dabei in Schutz zu nehmen !!!

[Gatsby2]

Keine Frage, daß Saddam den schnellstmöglichen Abgang verdient hat.

Aber Schorsch und seine gesamte Regierung sind in der Tat suspekt. Zwei frühere Vorstandsmitglieder von Ölgesellschaften als Präsident bzw. Vizepräsident, (des letzteren verehrte Gattin ist übrigens sechs Wochen vor der Wahl aus dem Board von Lockheed ausgeschieden); der Transportminister (und weitere 5 Staatssekretäre) war(en) leitender Mitarbeiter bei Lockheed, und der Außenminister ist ein früherer General, der ganz zufällig schon am ersten Golfkrieg beteiligt war, und so alle politisch relevanten Figuren dort unten kennt.

Ein Schelm, wer böses dabei denkt!

[hic]

Powell ist dabei noch eher ien bremsender Faktor im Gegensatz
zu Rumsfeld !

[Gatsby2]

Rumsfeld?! -- Mal sehen, was ihm diesmal zu Herrn Struck einfällt.

Aber Wallstreet spricht heute jedenfalls eine klare Sprache:

Alle Rüstungswerte (BA, GD, NOC, RTN, TRW) sind an einem relativ schwachen Handelstag stabil, und LMT legt ordentlich zu.

Was mich etwas wundert ist der seltsamerweise fallende Ölpreis. Oder wollen sie nur noch ein paar billige Tankerladungen einkaufen, die dann unterwegs eine wundersame Wertsteigerung erfahren?

Slippery stuff
Nov 8th 2002
From The Economist Global Agenda


The price of oil fell to a five-month low this week, despite an impending war in
Iraq. The reason for this paradox is that markets doubt OPEC’s ability to control
supply, which is running well above agreed quotas



IT IS rather curious that the price of oil, which topped $30 a barrel in September, had
by the middle of this week fallen by around $5 to a five-month low. The price has since
ticked up somewhat, to about $26 a barrel for the American crude-oil benchmark, but
still languishes far below its autumn peak. This is odd because the prospect of war in
Iraq has increased, and Middle Eastern wars usually push the oil price up as concerns
grow about supply security. What has happened to the “fear premium”, at one point
reckoned to be around $5 a barrel? Is it still in the price? Or has it been offset by other
factors, such as an increase in supply?

Probably the latter. The OPEC oil-producers’ cartel (excluding Iraq) is now producing
close to 24m barrels per day (bpd), more than 2m barrels above the quota agreed by its
members. But the implications of this overproduction differ dramatically depending on
whether you believe it to be the result of individual members cheating (a perennial OPEC
problem) or a deliberate and perhaps co-ordinated attempt to place supplies well out of
harm’s way ahead of the expected American invasion of Iraq.

The level of OPEC’s production is surprising. As
recently as September, when the cartel’s
members last met formally, OPEC resisted
pressure from oil-consuming countries to
increase its supply quota. There were several
arguments for raising production. The northern
hemisphere was moving into winter, a period in
which demand there is estimated to rise by
around 1.6m bpd. The International Energy
Agency, a quasi-governmental watchdog for oil
consumers, warned that stocks of crude were
“uncomfortably low”. And the $30-per-barrel
price at the time, it seemed, threatened to tip
an already fragile world economy back into
recession.

Saudi Arabia, which sits on the world’s largest
oil reserves and is OPEC’s swing producer, had
been minded to argue for a 1m bpd increase in
production. But it desisted, partly because of
opposition from other cartel members, and
partly, it is thought, because it suspected that
other members would use an official increase as
an excuse to cheat even more than they
already were. Instead, the cartel held to its
quota target, which has been reduced by 5m
bpd in the past two years.

Saudi Arabia itself is producing around 1m bpd
above its quota. This has led some to speculate
that it wants to get as much oil as possible out
of the ground and far away from Iraq (with
which it shares a long border) ahead of an
invasion. Many oil strategists fear that Saddam
Hussein may strike back against America, which
consumes a quarter of the world’s oil, by
setting fire to oilfields, as he did in Kuwait
during the Gulf war in 1991, or by blowing up
pipelines.

On top of this Saudi overproduction, other
OPEC members—among them Algeria, Qatar,
Libya and Venezuela—are pumping a combined
1m bpd more than their quota. The incentive to cheat is clear: these countries need the
money. Moreover, with non-OPEC producers, especially Russia, showing no intention of
introducing OPEC-like production cuts, OPEC members want to head off Russia’s efforts
to build up its market share at their expense.

In addition to the cheating in OPEC, Iraq has increased its production—by 350,000 bpd
during September, for instance. This is in line with an agreement with the United
Nations, which monitors its production under an oil-for-food programme. The fact that
Iraq now accounts for almost 2m bpd raises the stakes if supply is interrupted, either
deliberately, as a war tactic, by Mr Hussein, or through war damage.

Russia will be a key player over the coming years. President George Bush has reversed
previous American policy, and is now encouraging Russia to develop its own oilfields.
Russia is the world’s second-biggest oil exporter, and could become a crucial supplier if
Iraqi oil is knocked out of action. Russian objections to America’s UN resolution on Iraq
are widely thought to have been played up in order to secure guarantees that Russian
oil interests in Iraq will be protected under a new, American-backed regime.

For as long as Russia strives to climb higher up the global oil hierarchy by pumping and
shipping more than is comfortable for OPEC, there will be substantial downward pressure
on the oil price. If there is war in Iraq, the price may spike up again. But the incentives
for poor countries to produce more of the black stuff, and for OPEC to cheat on quotas,
are such that it may not last long.

[hic]

nach einer "erfolgreichen" Irak-Mission
ist wohl mit tieferen Öl-preisen zu rechen, aber bis dahin...

[Gatsby2]

Schön zu wissen, daß sich schon mal jemand um die Kosten kümmert:

The economics of war

Calculating the consequences

Nov 28th 2002 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition

Recent studies suggest that even a successful military campaign in Iraq could carry a hefty price tag

“IT SEEMS likely that Americans are underestimating the economic commitments involved in a war with Iraq,” says William Nordhaus, an economics professor at Yale University. Given all the imponderables surrounding such a war, it is surprising how many experts (like Mr Nordhaus) are trying to work out how much it might cost. After all, it is not clear whether Saddam Hussein`s grip will crumble or if he might use weapons of mass destruction. And it is anybody`s guess whether OPEC countries will replace any lost Iraqi production—or might slash output in a general Arab boycott.

The findings of the most ambitious effort to date, undertaken by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, an American think-tank, were unveiled this week in New York. Over the course of the past few months, CSIS has tapped experts from various fields to try and quantify the likely impacts of war. First, the group`s military and geopolitical gurus defined four likely military outcomes: no war; a benign war that lasts four to six weeks; a thornier intermediate option that lasts up to three months; and a “worse” case that drags on for as long as six months. The group intentionally set aside still worse possibilities, such as the use of nuclear weapons.

For each of these options, oil-market analysts convened by CSIS speculated over the likely path of oil prices. Their predictions were then fed into macroeconomic models that took into account the positive inputs, such as higher government spending, as well as the negative ones, such as higher inflation. They also factored in the role of market psychology, recalling the experience of the 1970s when oil shocks were accompanied by hoarding and panicky behaviour.

The group reached some striking conclusions. For a start, the no-war scenario is not necessarily the best for the economy. That is because lingering uncertainty about a possible war will continue to depress markets and add a risk premium that boosts oil prices and acts as a drag on growth. At the other extreme, if things turn ugly, the team predicts that oil prices could spike up to $80 a barrel and, more damaging in economic terms, stay at around $40 for many months thereafter (see chart).

In the end, though, the group`s assessment of the cumulative cost of war to the end of 2004 is not overly alarming: about $55 billion in the benign scenario, and around $120 billion in the worse-case scenario. (The higher numbers in the table below are for a whole decade.) The Congressional Budget Office and a committee of the House of Representatives have also done some sums, and both came up with estimates of $50 billion-60 billion for a shortish war. The Gulf war cost about $80 billion in today`s money, although much of that was recouped by contributions from Saudi Arabia and other allies, which are not likely to be repeated this time. Even so, America can afford all the scenarios.

Some even suggest that the war could be an economic boon. Most wars in America`s history have—thanks to massive government spending on defence—tended to stimulate the economy. A notable exception to that, however, was the Gulf war, which was followed by recession. Even so, say some extreme imperialists, if Saddam Hussein is ousted, then America will be able to turn Iraq into its own private pumping-station. Private or not, higher Iraqi output would mean that oil prices would drop for a while and America`s economy (along with other oil-consumers`) would benefit.

Larry Lindsey, a top economic adviser to President George Bush, made precisely this argument recently: “When there is a regime change in Iraq, you could add 3m-5m barrels of production to world supply...successful prosecution of the war would be good for the economy.” The snag in this rosy plan is the dilapidated state of Iraq`s petroleum infrastructure: oilmen say it would take 5-10 years for Iraqi output to reach such unprecedented levels (even assuming a post-Saddam Iraq would actually want to flood the world market with oil). Mr Lindsey offered an even more cheerful forecast: he estimated that even a prolonged war would not cost more than $100 billion-200 billion, or about 1-2% of America`s GDP.



What`s the worry, then?
Hang on a minute, says Mr Nordhaus, who argues in the latest New York Review of Books that none of the recent analyses of war goes far enough. In general terms, he agrees with their estimates for the direct military costs for the various scenarios. But he insists they underestimate the long-term costs to America from an Iraqi war.

He points to the high costs likely to be incurred after a military victory is secured: eg, in peacekeeping, reconstruction and nation-building. Mr Bush has openly committed America to rebuilding Iraq after ousting Mr Hussein. By examining international experience in post-war Kosovo, East Timor, Haiti and other recent cases, Mr Nordhaus estimates that such non-military costs could reach $600 billion if a liberated Iraq turns out to be more like the West Bank than Kosovo.

He also worries that an Arab boycott or some other political factor could keep a significant share of OPEC oil off the market for many months. And that, of course, would mean higher oil prices, higher inflation, lost economic output, and so on. All told, Mr Nordhaus thinks that even an Iraqi invasion that went well would probably cost about $120 billion in today`s money over the next decade—and one that went horribly wrong could end up costing a whopping $1.6 trillion.

The estimators differ in the purpose, methodology and sophistication of their analysis. But, taken together, recent prognoses point to one conclusion: even a short war will prove fairly costly, while a messy one could deal the economy a severe blow. Mr Bush has often stressed the possible price—in terms of national security—of not going to war against Saddam Hussein. These studies suggest that he should start preparing Americans for the economic costs of going to war as well.