Biz Watch

By STEVE ZWICK Sunday, June 15, 2003

LOOKING UP: Stock traders finally have something to smile about

MICHAEL PROBST/AP

Is the Recovery for Real?
With the world focusing on droopy consumer confidence and sluggish economic growth, it's easy to overlook the fact that global stock markets have quietly risen over 20% since March 11. What does that mean? Bank of America strategist Lorenzo Codogno believes that while most of us look backward at last quarter's growth, the market is telling us what lies around the bend. "The stock market essentially anticipates the economic situation by three or four quarters," he says. "Right now it is pricing in a recovery for next year."

Commerzbank strategist Rolf Elgeti disagrees. He says it's an old-fashioned "bear squeeze": traders bet so heavily on the market dropping in February and early March that they had to scramble to buy shares when it inched up. "The market is

INDICATORS
Rate Expectations
The European Central Bank sparked talk of a rate cut as it slashed its growth forecast for this year from 1.1-2.1% to 0.4-1%. It also expects inflation to fall from around 2% this year to about 1.3% next year.

Suspicious Minds
Last week Britain's largest arms maker, BAE, was attacked from all sides. France's Thales dismissed claims that it approached BAE about a merger. Meanwhile, BAE was busily denying accusations that it bribed Czech officials.

Hanging Chad
The World Economic Forum released rankings of Africa's best-run economies. Botswana took the top spot, while Chad, thanks to rampant corruption, came last.

signaling a recovery in the broader economy, but not a return to the bull market of the 1990s," Codogno cautions. So keep that exuberance rational.

Pole Position Shifts Again
Maybe it's time to hire a temp. After Poland's Prime Minister Leszek Miller yanked away economic control and transferred it to economy minister Jerzy Hausner, Grzegorz Kolodko became the second Finance Minister to quit during Miller's troubled 20-month administration. Kolodko warned that Hausner would destroy attempts to control deficits — jeopardizing euro membership. Some analysts, already spooked by Poland's shortfalls, agreed. "It's a mixed blessing," says Jos Verbeek, a World Bank economist in Warsaw, who hopes economic policy will at least be more coordinated. But Kolodko was controversial, and many business leaders are glad he's gone. "The environment in which we've been operating has been exceptionally hostile," says Henryka Bochniarz, president of the Polish Confederation of Private Employers. If the new guy isn't any better, at least he won't be around for long. — By Blaine Greteman. Reported by Tadeusz L. Kucharski/Warsaw and Jan Stojaspal

The Bubble Economy
There must be good economic news somewhere: French drinks group Rémy Cointreau said revived champagne sales tripled its profits in bubbly, to €17.2 million. Or perhaps businesses are heeding Napoleon's supposed words: "In victory, you deserve champagne; in defeat, you need it."

The Bottom Line
	All we want is employees who support what we do
		FRANK WÖCKEL, business manager of Berlin's Eitmann-Verlag publishers, on why the firm, which prints antismoking books, bans employees from smoking, even at home on their own time