sg.biz.yahoo.com Tuesday January 28, 12:38 AM

CARACAS -(Dow Jones)- Venezuela's main Caracas Stock Exchange resumed trading Monday for just two and a half hours a day, after shutting down in support of an ongoing 57-day-old general strike against President Hugo Chavez's leadership, bourse officials said.

The exchange, which last traded Nov. 29, is open between 9:30 a.m. local time (1330 GMT) and noon (1600 GMT) until further notice, the official said.

Local banks keep about the same hours despite various government threats and demands they open full days.

The news follows reports shopping malls, schools, and franchises including most fast food restaurant chains, also plan to reopen within the next week. Much of the country's industrial operations are still shut and the government is struggling to normalize the vital oil sector without striking workers.

Strike leaders have refused to call off the most important aspect of the strike - in the oil industry - until Chavez agrees to early elections.

Chavez has said his detractors must avail themselves of constitutionally approved measures such as an amendment shortening his term or a possible recall referendum in August, the midpoint of his term.

Chavez's critics blame him for a likely 8% economic contraction in 2002, amid 18% unemployment, and 31% inflation sparked by the bolivar's ($1=VEB1853) 46% devaluation. For 2003, the currency has lost about 25%.

Chavez blames the problems on an "economic coup" by his opponents.

Caracas Stock Exchange Website:www.caracasstock.com

-By Jehan Senaratna, Dow Jones Newswires; 58 212 564 1339; jehan.senaratna@dowjones.com

www.thestreet.com By John Roque Special to RealMoney.com 01/27/2003 11:46 AM EST Editor's note: This column was originally published Jan. 22.

You know how it is. You feel pressure to perform every single day, and you look at charts here and there in order to get some edge. But you don't really monitor longer-term charts. You can't. There's just not enough time in the day.

Earnings are being released, and you're busy trying to figure out if the number was in line, better or light. You're also contending with the inevitable daily stock disappointment, Iraq, North Korea, Venezuela and any other geopolitical worries. I figure it's safe to say that portfolio performance anxiety is already building.

Mind you, I'm not writing this to say that I've conquered the "perspective" discipline. What is that exactly? Tough question. I think it means to not be shaken out by daily moves, to have an aerial view, to see stocks in a bigger-picture scenario. However you define it, I'm still very far from it.

But I do make a habit of, as my friend Doug is fond of saying, "looking through" the charts. He contends that by using the look-through method, you can prepare for more important moves. Looking through the charts means seeing how daily price movements affect weekly price charts and how weekly price movements affect monthly price charts.

The trouble is, and I'm sure Doug will likely agree with me, there's so much volatility that even the most disciplined investors -- those with perspective -- can run into difficulty when trying to look through the charts.

Let's try this with an example. Take a look at the monthly and weekly charts to get some perspective on Newmont Mining (NEM:NYSE - news - commentary) .

Judging by my daily email and phone encounters, there are very few investors enamored with Newmont, the gold-stock complex or the physical metal. There's no affinity for anything to do with gold. It's been a long time since anyone has made any money with the sector. It's considered a relic, nobody understands it, and most people, even if they are considering it, only view it as a corollary to the geopolitical instabilities. When it comes right down to it, people only want to own "sexy" stuff. That makes gold the Phyllis Diller of investments.

Investors' inability to embrace Newmont et al. is especially interesting because virtually no other sector in the entire market displays the same technical characteristics: bullish absolute and relative strength, group strength, underlying commodity/monetary asset strength and generally uninterested investors. Maybe this is a stretch, but the lack of interest in Newmont and related stocks is the reverse image of technology in the spring of 2000. I'm sure you remember -- back then, tech had broken charts with ebullient sentiment. Now, gold and gold charts have bullish charts, and most people don't care or don't like them.

So how did I use perspective and look-through methods to read these charts and come to these conclusions? I coupled anecdotal sentiment evidence with technical analysis, and then I used longer-term charts (monthly to smooth the data and weekly to show some volatility) to get perspective on where we've come from and where we can go. Daily charts don't provide that sort of perspective.

Perspective and the look-through theme combine to produce a powerful vision for Newmont, the gold stock complex and the physical metal. And not in a Jim Jones Kool-Aid kind of way. Here's the takeaway:

1. The gold complex is bullish.
2. Gold stocks should be bought on pullbacks.
3. We're in a secular bull market for the gold complex.
4. As long as sentiment remains unconvinced, these stocks will likely be insulated from speculative forces.

John Roque is the technical analyst at Natexis Bleichroeder, a New York-based investment brokerage firm specializing in Europe and the U.S., and a frequent guest on CNBC. At time of publication, Roque had no position in any of the securities mentioned in this column, although holdings can change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. He appreciates your feedback and invites you to send it to John Roque.

www.news8austin.com 1/27/2003 9:44 AM By: Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Embattled President Hugo Chavez promised to put price controls in place, having restricted trading of foreign currencies.

The country's economy has been crippled by an opposition strike, entering its ninth week.

Hundreds of thousands of people occupied a highway over the weekend to protest a court decision suspending a referendum on Chavez's rule. It was to have been held Feb. 2.

Opposition leaders say they will collect signatures petitioning for Chavez to quit and for pro-Chavez lawmakers to be replaced. A coalition of business, labor and political groups called the strike to pressure Chavez into accepting a referendum. The strike has greatly reduced oil production in the world's fifth-largest petroleum exporter.

Chavez said that oil production has risen to 1.3 million barrels a day. Dissident oil executives said it is about three-quarters of that level.

www.stuff.co.nz 28 January 2003

TOKYO: Japan's trade surplus rose by an unexpectedly small amount in December, with higher oil prices pushing up the cost of imports and exports showing weakness in what could be a worrying sign for the struggling economy.

The Ministry of Finance said yesterday that the customs-cleared surplus rose 19.9 per cent from a year earlier to 791 billion yen ($NZ12.40 billion).

But exports fell 7.3 per cent from November and the rise in the surplus was lower than a median forecast of about 40 per cent to 920 billion yen by economists polled last week.

Economists said rising oil prices due to a looming conflict in Iraq and a crippling strike in Venezuela were partly to blame for the smaller-than-expected surplus, but added that exports - one of Japan's few economic bright spots - were also a concern.

"The trade gap was narrower than our forecasts due to a steep rise in imports, mainly because of the rise in oil prices," said Takeshi Minami, a senior economist at UFJ Tsubasa Securities.

"The outlook for the domestic economy remains bearish, as today's figures give clear evidence that exports are falling."

The futures market price of Brent crude has surged to above $US30 ($NZ55) per barrel from below $US23 in mid-November, and could head even higher if a US-led war against Iraq breaks out.

With Japan depending heavily on Middle East oil, the price rises helped push up imports by 1.2 per cent from a month earlier and by 14.1 per cent from a year earlier to 3.769 trillion yen .

Separate data from the Finance Ministry showed that the value of Japan's customs-cleared imports of crude oil totalled a preliminary 492.858 billion yen in December, up a hefty 51.3 per cent from a year earlier.

Despite falling from the previous month, exports rose on a year-on-year basis for the ninth straight month, gaining 15.1 per cent to 4.560 trillion yen.

A rebound in exports helped drag Japan out of its worst postwar recession early last year and had appeared to be holding up, despite a pause around the third quarter of 2002.

But the overall economy, beset by persistent deflation, a mountain of corporate bad loans and puny domestic demand, has failed to maintain its momentum.

"Looking at the export volumes... they're still pretty strong. Total export volumes were up 13.5 per cent on the year, and exports to Asia were also very strong," said Matthew Poggi, an economist at Lehman Brothers.

"So while our forecast calls for somewhat slower external demand, it doesn't look like it's showing up in the trade numbers just yet. But certainly it's a concern going forward," he added.

For the whole of calendar 2002, the trade surplus rose 51.3 per cent from the previous year to 9.930 trillion yen, with exports up 6.4 per cent and imports down 0.6 per cent.

Industrial production figures out later this week are expected to show that output shrank in the October-December period for the first time in four quarters, boding ill for GDP figures for the period due out on February 14.

Some economists say Japan may be heading into its fourth recession in a decade, although the consensus view is for a period of meagre growth for at least the first half of this calendar year.

A major risk to that scenario is the looming US-led war in Iraq.

By raising the price of the imported oil Japan depends on, a conflict in the Gulf could damage growth prospects. Expectations of a war have already weakened the dollar against the yen, making Japanese exports less competitive.

The yen was around 117.90 yen per $US by mid-morning yesterday. Its climb from around 125 yen in early December has brought frequent threats of intervention from Japanese Finance Ministry officials.

Reuters, 01.27.03, 10:54 AM ET

CARACAS, Venezuela, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Venezuela's stock market, restarting trading after an eight-week suspension during an opposition strike, jumped 10.43 percent Monday due to the impact of foreign exchange adjustments on market leaderCANTV <TDVd.CR> (nyse: VNT - news - people), the country's biggest telecoms company, traders said.

The Caracas stock index <.IBC> rose 836.22 points to 8,851.39 points from the 8,015.17 points close it had registered last Nov. 29, the last trading day before the strike started Dec. 2. The strike shuttered operations at the Caracas exchange.

Exchange authorities decided last week to restart stock trading which had been suspended during the 57-day-old strike. The strike was launched by foes of leftist President Hugo Chavez to demand that he resign and hold early elections. The strike, which has slashed the country's vital oil exports, is continuing.

Traders said that Monday's rise was due to a 22.68 percent gain by CANTV, whose shares are also traded in dollar-denominated ADRs on the New York Stock Exchange. In Caracas, the telecoms company's stock traded at 3,024 bolivars a share, while in New York the ADRs were trading at $10.64 each.

Battered by the impact of the crippling opposition strike, Venezuela's bolivar currency has fallen 28 percent against the U.S. dollar since the start of the strike and the government has suspended currency trading prior to introducing foreign exchange controls.