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Investment Views (November 9th 1998)

Instead of writing my clients individually I thought I might as well
do a weekly summary of my views on the markets, the currencies,
the economy, the world, and life in general.

Markets in General

The markets rallied all over the world indicating again that the most important factor
for stock markets is and will be the interest rates environment. The US markets
remains the strongest. It only paused slightly at the 8650 level then it was almost
straight up to test the 9000 level. We have the feeling that we should have a
rather choppier week this week. We should be backing and filling between
8800 and 9050 level. But if we break the 9050 level we might see new highs made
on the dow. Unless the market close substantially above the high made last
July, we should see a larger pullback; maybe even a retest of the 7400 level.

As I have foreseen, the markets in Europe were relatively weaker than the
US. On the SMI in Zurich we're still more than 20% below the highs made
in July. The US hedge funds seems to be still short Europe and long US.
Despite of all that the markets in Europe had a good week. We expect a
substantial pullback this week, if the US markets correct as we expected.
However if the US markets does not correct then the Swiss markets will
have further room to go up to maybe the 6900-7000 area. But that
level looks like the maximum for the moment. We should then retest
the 6500 level and maybe even the 6000 level. Breaking 6000 would
be a very bearish sign.

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Stocks

Our favorite stocks remains SAP, Nokia, Raisio Group, Ericcson, Cable and Wireless, Orange
and Bachem.

High of the Year	Low of the Year	Stock	Last Week's Close	Daily high	Daily low	This Week's Close*
SFr. 1495	1351	Bachem	1810	1825	1795	1800
Gbp 8.13	4.67	C&W	6.57	6.52	6.13	6.25
SFr. 51	25	Ericsson	29	33	31.8	32.25
FIM 509	182	Nokia	442	467	450	452
Gbp 8	2.40	Orange	5.53	6.12	5.83	5.98
FIM 1080	640	Raisio Group	72.50	59.80	52.50	83.40
SFr. 1029	419	SAP	560	643	600	620
SFr. 2350	1820	Stratec	1720	1800	1800	1800

*closing prices of Thursday, 5th of November 1998
There seems to be a little bit of delay in marketing Benecol in the US. The FDA seems to have
some reservations about how to label the margarine. Raisio's stock prices seem to have
tanked in connection to this news. We think this is creating an excellant buying opportunity.
We have visited the US last week and have seen that the trend in supermarkets and
drug stores towards health foods is alive and well. We're therefore still convinced
that benecol will be well received in the US. The setback is temporary.
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Currencies

The dollar has recovered quite a bit of ground, moving parallel to the stock markets.
We see the dollar stablizing around the SFr. 1.3750 level. The target at the moment
is SFr. 1.40. If the target is reached, we might see further strength.

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*The stock prices are provided for informational puruposes only and not intended for trading purposes. The opinions expressed in these pages are what they are: opinions!

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