By Anne D. Picker, International Economist,Econoday
Monday, September 2, 2002

International Perspective will be on vacation next week.
The next weekly letter will be available on September 16th.

After a few exhilarating weeks, investors exhaled and sold stocks, pushing the indexes followed here down again. They were pressured by saber rattling against Iraq and disappointing profit reports, especially by European insurers who have been hit hard by declining stock prices. Once again uncertainties baffled investors, and not even retribution against corporate miscreants helped. On the week, indexes followed here fell anywhere from 0.6 percent (South Korean Kospi) to 4.6 percent (Nasdaq). The Toronto S&P/TSX composite barely broke even and the Mexican Bolsa managed to rise 1.1 percent. In the first two months of the third quarter, all indexes are down when compared with their second-quarter close despite heroic efforts in August to rise above it all. On the year, only the South Korean Kospi, after flirting with a negative reading, is once again above its 2001 year-end level.

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