cbs.marketwatch.com By Myra P. Saefong, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 4:11 PM ET Jan. 13, 2003

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Oil prices climbed back above $32 a barrel Monday, with traders expressing doubt that OPEC's increase in production of 1.5 million barrels per day would arrive fast enough or be sufficient to cover the shortfall from Venezuela's oil strike.

The output increase of 6.5 percent, to 24.5 million barrels a day, is to take effect Feb. 1, the oil cartel said. OPEC also said it would review the decision at its next regularly scheduled meeting in March. Read full story.

February crude closed at $32.26 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 58 cents, after falling to a low at $31.13 earlier in the session. In London, the Brent contract on the International Petroleum Exchange rose 53 cents to $30.20.

"This increase should be enough to keep the Venezuelan disruption in check," Tyler Dann, an analyst at Banc of America Securities, told clients Monday, "assuming that OPEC is able to fully increase actual production volumes by the amount of this quota change and combined with the release of extra inventories maintained by certain members of the organization."

Alaron.com senior energy analyst Phil Flynn said that the increase is "great," though it comes "too little, too late to ease this current supply crisis developing in the U.S. and throughout the world."

The latest production hike won't take effect until Feb. 1, and it'll take five or six weeks for the extra oil to reach the U.S. Prior to the meeting, cartel members said the quota limits could change if the situation in Venezuela is resolved.

"The increase to go into effect two weeks from now will do little to ease tightness and in fact, in two weeks our supply levels will fall to critically low levels," Flynn said.

He added: "We're falling further and further behind to replenish our stock levels ... losing 2 million to 3 million barrels per day from Venezuela."

That adds up to 14 million to 21 million barrels per week and in five weeks, a loss of some 70 million to 105 million barrels, Flynn said.

On that note, the OPEC hike "will not bring that many incremental barrels into the market to make up for production lost as a consequence of the Venezuelan crisis," Mike Fitzpatrick, an analyst at Fimat USA, told clients Monday.

Venezuela's strike began on Dec. 2. Production there dropped below 200,000 barrels per day at its lowest point, from the usual 3 million barrels per day. Opponents of President Hugo Chavez have been calling for his resignation or for new presidential elections.

Supplies can't cover loss of Iraq output

Oil production from Iraq could also be removed from the global market if war breaks out with the U.S., as expected within the next two months, said Dann. Iraq exports about 2 million barrels per day under the U.N.'s food-for-oil program.

If Iraq exports are affected, OPEC would "likely need at least some help from non-OPEC producers to keep the market from overheating," Dann warned.

Analysts say they're concerned about OPEC's ability to cover lost oil in the event of a U.S. war with Iraq on top of Venezuela's shortfall. Analysts pegged OPEC's spare capacity at around 3 million barrels, which would fall short of covering a total of around 5 million barrels lost from OPEC members Venezuela and Iraq. See related story.

During Sunday's meeting, cartel members said they could provide another 4 million barrels to the market, "which is a bit more spare capacity than generally thought," said Fimat analyst John Kilduff.

The cartel "remains determined to take whatever measures, as and when deemed necessary, to maintain oil price and market stability, and states that the market will be continuously and carefully monitored," according to OPEC's agreement Sunday. OPEC set its next meeting for March 11 in Vienna.

"Prices have not reacted [much] because a production deficit remains with Venezuela's 2 million barrel per day product off the market," said Kilduff.

For now, Fimat expects that "the market will continue to react nervously to headlines waxing and waning between psychologically important $30 and the recent high of $33.65," Fitzpatrick said.

"With war looming and the Venezuelan loss just balanced at the low end of a comfortable range for global inventories," Banc of America's Dann expects prices to remain "at least in the high $20s, if not in the $30s in the near-term."

High prices on tap

As the potential war with Iraq draws near, however, "consumers should expect some of the highest crude oil and gasoline prices and heating oil prices since 2000," said Kilduff.

In 2000, retail gasoline prices reached $2 and "the spike in energy prices had a hand in the economic slowdown that the global economy is continuing to emerge from," he said.

Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at The Oil Price Information Service pointed out that the gasoline industry normally has a "tough time handling the transition from winter to summer blends and they will have real problems if there is no Venezuelan refinery production or a limping industry [from refinery maintenance and outages] at the time."

The situation is Venezuela "cannot be overstated," Kilduff said, given that the chemical composition of the country's crude oil is "unique and cannot be easily interchanged with the lighter, sweeter Middle Eastern crude."

"Iraq is a further price spike for another day," he said.

Also Monday, two oil fields in the North Sea were shut down due to technical problems. The fields account for about 165,000 barrels per day of production "which is not much," said Dailyfutures.com President Todd Hultman, "but the news caught the market at a nervous time."

Against this backdrop, February unleaded gasoline climbed 2.71 cents to 89.91 cents a gallon. February heating oil closed at 88.38 cents a gallon, up 1.85 cents.

Meanwhile, concerns over the eventual rise in oil market supplies pressured most oil-service stocks. The Oil Service Index ($OSX: news, chart, profile) closed down 2.4 percent. See Energy Stocks.

In other energy news, February natural gas rose 10.8 cents to $5.251 per million British thermal units "as much of the U.S. braces itself for the coldest weather of the season," according to Fitzpatrick.

Nymex gold futures close flat

Gold futures prices closed little changed Monday, holding above $355 an ounce amid uncertainty over North Korea and volatility in the broader U.S. stock market. See Metals Stocks.

Soybean futures fall

Over on the Chicago Board of Trade, soybean futures fell, pressured by rain in Brazil over the weekend that'll likely benefit crops, according to Todd Hultman, president of commodity information provider, Dailyfutures.com.

March soybeans fell 8 3/4 cents to 548 cents a bushel. March wheat also declined 8 cents to close at 311 1/4 cents a bushel, and March corn slipped 4 1/4 cents to 230 1/2 cents a bushel.

Hultman said last week's export inspections were twice the estimated pace for soybeans at 32.5 million bushels.

Meanwhile, wheat inspections were roughly as estimated at 19.7 million bushels and corn was below the expected pace at 28.1 million bushels.

Corn was pressured after the government Friday raised its estimates for stocks at the end of the 2002 to 2003 year by 81 million to 924 million bushels, Hultman said.

The Reuters/CRB Index, broad-based measure of the commodity futures market, closed at 239.2, down 0.4 percent. Myra P. Saefong is a reporter for CBS.MarketWatch.com in San Francisco.

www.forbes.com Reuters, 01.13.03, 7:28 AM ET (Updates with European prices, fresh quotes, changes dateline) By Nigel Stephenson

LONDON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Shares rose on Monday, boosted by tech stocks after gains on the U.S. Nasdaq on Friday, while oil prices slipped following news of an OPEC deal to boost output. Still high geopolitical tension and worries over the U.S. economy kept the dollar close to three-year lows but safe haven gold pulled back from recent highs. European shares opened higher, buoyed by a potential battle for control of a British supermarket chain and by tech stocks after Wall Street's gain on strong earnings outlooks. European telecoms, such as Cable & Wireless <CW.L> and France Telecom <FTE.PA> were higher after Goldman Sachs raised its rating on the sector to "attractive" from "neutral". The OPEC cartel's decision on Sunday to raise production to stave off an oil price shock lent some support to energy stocks. At 1145 GMT, the FTSE Eurotop 300 index <.FTEU3> of pan-European blue chips was up 1.1 percent while the narrower DJ Euro STOXX 50 index was up 1.6 percent. However, analysts remained cautious amid worries about corporate earnings as well as a possible U.S.-led attack on Iraq. "In the short term the market will be driven by the reporting season and my fear is that European companies' 2003 guidances are going to be revised downwards," said SG Securities European equity strategist Alain Bokobza. "On top of that we still have the Iraq problem and the oil market question mark hanging over the market." British grocery group Safeway <SFW.L> was up nearly five percent after J Sainsbury <SBRY.L> said it was mulling a 3.2 billion pound ($5.14 billion) bid for the firm. Another store group, William Morrison <MRW.L>, bid for Safeway last week. Tokyo markets were closed for a holiday but shares rose around three percent in South Korea <.KS11> and Taiwan <.TWII>. U.S. stock index futures were higher, indicating Wall Street would open firmer.

OIL SLIPS Oil prices slipped after the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on Sunday increased production limits by seven percent to compensate for reduced output from major exporter Venezuela which has been in the grips of a strike for six weeks. Brent crude for February was down 41 cents a barrel at $29.26. U.S. light crude was at $31.47, compared with $31.68 at the New York close on Friday. Oil traders said the fall in prices was limited because the output increase of 1.5 million barrels was expected. The dollar, already under pressure over North Korea's decision last week to pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and continuing fears of war in Iraq, took another hit on Friday from gloomy U.S. employment data. It lifted slightly off multi-year lows on Monday as dealers looked ahead to data due later this week on the state of the U.S. economy. The euro <EUR=> was trading at $1.0542, off Friday's high of $1.0585, its strongest since November 1999. "All the focus will be on U.S. data and whether it is showing signs of strengthening economic activity. The answer seems to be it's still pretty mixed -- the economy is bouncing along the bottom," said Ryan Shea, senior international economist at Bank One in London. The dollar was stable against the Japanese yen <JPY=> at 119.20 and was still close to a four-year low against the Swiss franc <CHF=>. Safe haven gold, which hit its highest for almost six years last week on the mounting global tension, pulled back slightly on the dollar's tentative recovery and on Wall Street's Friday gains. Spot gold <XAU=> was trading at $352.25 an ounce, compared with $354.30 in late New York trade. Yields on euro-denominated government bonds rose sharply as prices were weighed down by firmer stocks and ahead of an auction of Italian debt. The yield on the two-year German Schatz note <EU2YT=RR> was yielding 2.72 percent, up nearly seven basis points. Two-year yields set a 3-1/2 year low of 2.62 percent last week. The 10-year German Bund <EU10YT=RR> was yielding 4.32 percent, up 5.4 basis points. In the corporate bond market, France Telecom <FTE.PA> <FTELEC=> was preparing to sell three billion euros of bonds later this week, lead managers for the issue said.

cbs.marketwatch.com AOL Time Warner rises, Dell tumbles; crude prices ease By Allen Wan, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 3:47 PM ET Jan. 13, 2003

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) - While blue chips were barely afloat by late afternoon trade Monday and Dell Computer's losses threatened to drag down the Nasdaq, AOL Time Warner shares surged after chairman Steve Case resigned from the media and entertainment giant.

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($DJ: news, chart, profile) rose 23 points, or 0.3 percent, to 8,809. The Nasdaq Composite ($COMPQ: news, chart, profile) was flat at 1,447. The S&P 500 Index (SPX: news, chart, profile) was also steady at 927.

Trading remained volatile. Good news in the form of falling oil prices, changes at AOL Time Warner and optimism over fourth-quarter earnings were offset by broker downgrades of Dell Computer, Johnson & Johnson and Duke Energy.  Watch latest market update.

"It's basically a tug of war between the bears and the bulls," said Peter Cardillo, chief investment strategist at Global Partner Securities. "We have a market that wants to go higher but can't because of the geopolitical concerns and technical resistance."

The Dow was being supported by gains of around 2 percent or better from General Motors (GM: news, chart, profile), Home Depot (HD: news, chart, profile), Boeing (BA: news, chart, profile), J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM: news, chart, profile) and Disney (DIS: news, chart, profile). But Johnson & Johnson slipped 1.8 percent and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ: news, chart, profile) eased 1.2 percent.

Shares of AOL Time Warner (AOL: news, chart, profile) surged 2.6 percent after Steve Case resigned as chairman Sunday. He'll remain a company director, with responsibility for corporate strategy. Case was a mastermind of the disastrous America Online merger with Time Warner two years ago. AOL stock rose 38 cents to $15.26. Read full story.

David Joyce, senior equity analyst at Guzman & Company, said Case's resignation was "all in all a positive step," but noted that AOL Time Warner still has many "overhanging issues."  Listen to Joyce.

With Case stepping down, some analysts say it's possible the company will take quick, decisive action to solve the 2-year-old problem with its troubled America Online division. Read due diligence.

It was a busy day in the AOL Time Warner empire as the chairman of cable news unit CNN Walter Isaacson also resigned to take a job with the Aspen Institute. Read full story.

Donald Selkin, director of equity research at Joseph Stevens, blamed some of the market gloominess on broker downgrades of Dell and Johnson & Johnson. Weak London markets were also a factor, as was profit taking after heady gains so far this year.

Shares of No.1 PC maker Dell Computer (DELL: news, chart, profile) fell 4.8 percent to $25.85 after J.P. Morgan Securities cut the stock to neutral from overweight. "We believe the temporary budget flush in the hardware sector benefited the PC segment less than other areas of the computer hardware sector," J.P. Morgan Securities told clients Monday.

"Dell's share gains should continue in this period, but with an increasingly aggressive industry pricing environment, these share gains could come at a higher cost," the broker said. It cut estimates for the year ending January 2004 to earnings of 95 cents a share, from an earlier forecast of 98 cents, and lowered its revenue estimates to $40.4 billion, from $41.6 billion."

Selkin, who noted unusual activity in Dell stock ahead of the expiration of options, said he expects the markets to gain by the end of the day, led by a rebound in Microsoft, which reports earnings on Thursday.

Tech watch

Intel (INTC: news, chart, profile) gained 0.7 percent ahead of the release of its fourth-quarter earnings Tuesday. Microsoft (MSFT: news, chart, profile), another key tech stock reporting later this week, edged up 0.9 percent. Microsoft and lawyers for the lead plaintiffs in 27 antitrust suits against the software maker in California said late Friday they had reached a $1.1 billion settlement. Read tech earnings outlook and hardware report.

Intel's release will be watched for forecasts of a chip sector rebound; there's speculation things improved in the second half of 2003. The chip giant is expected to report earnings of 14 cents per share.

Wall Street forecasters are bullish about the outlook for corporate earnings in the fourth quarter, but their views get less rosy the further out they gaze into their crystal balls. Read earnings preview and Earnings Watch.

Motorola (MOT: news, chart, profile) tumbled 5.7 percent after the company said it plans to make a tender offer to acquire all the outstanding stock of Next Level Communications (NXTV: news, chart, profile) it doesn't already own. Next Level soared 30 percent.

Cisco Systems (CSCO: news, chart, profile) edged up 0.5 percent to a seven-month high, and was the Nasdaq exchange's most-active issue.

Shares of Nortel Networks (NT: news, chart, profile) ran up 7.7 percent to $2.53 on NYSE leading volume of 50 million shares. The stock, which is now up 57 percent since the end of 2002, reached an eight-month high of $2.70 earlier in the session.

Meanwhile, oil prices eased after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed Sunday to increase crude production by 1.5 million barrels a day, or 6.5 percent, to 24.5 million in a bid to lower prices and offset shortages resulting from a strike in Venezuela. February crude traded at $31.42 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down 26 cents. Read full story.

Oil service and utility stocks were the biggest losers, with Transocean (RIG: news, chart, profile) losing 1.6 percent and Haliburton (HAL: news, chart, profile) easing 1.7 percent.

Shares of Duke Energy (DUK: news, chart, profile) plunged 12.9 percent after analyst Steven Fleishman at Merrill Lynch downgraded the company to "sell" from "neutral" following its warning that 2002 and 2003 earnings would fall short of expectations.

In other corporate news, Georgia-Pacific Corp. (GP: news, chart, profile) warned that its fourth-quarter profit would come in well below Wall Street's consensus forecast, sending shares down as much as 13 percent. Shares of Georgia-Pacific traded at last check down 8.0 percent. Read full story.

Analyst Girish Tyagi at Thomas Weisel Monday cut his rating on Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ: news, chart, profile) stock from "buy" to "attractive," citing concern about its pharmaceutical business. Tyagi said J&J's key anti-anemia treatment, Procrit, faces a strong challenge from a competing therapy from Amgen (AMGN: news, chart, profile). Johnson & Johnson stock fell 1.2 percent, while Amgen rose 1.4 percent.

Raytheon (RTN: news, chart, profile) plunged 5.2 percent after the defense company acknowledged in a statement that the Securities and Exchange Commission was looking into revenue recognition practices from 1997 to 2001 at its Raytheon aircraft unit. Read full story.

In other key exchanges, the Nasdaq 100 ($NDX: news, chart, profile) fell 0.1 percent to 1,086, while the Russell 2000 ($RUT: news, chart, profile) of small-cap stocks was flat at 396.

Volume hit 714 million on the NYSE and 948 million on the Nasdaq. Decliners beat advancers by a ratio of 16 to 14 on the Big Board and 15 to 13 on the Nasdaq.

Funds investing primarily in U.S. stock witnessed outflows of $1.7 billion in the first trading week of the year, Trim Tabs said. U.S. equity funds received $2.4 billion of new cash between Jan. 3-9, Dbut that was more than offset by $4.1 billion in outflows on Jan. 2, the first trading day of the year.

Treasurys were slightly on the defensive as stock averages got a boost from the shake-up at AOL Time Warner. Checking the latest prices, a benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell 7/32 at 98 23/32 to yield 4.16 percent, up from 4.13 percent in the previous session. A 30-year bond was off 5/32 at 104 24/32 to yield 5.06 percent, up from 5.05 percent. Read bond report.

The dollar gained 0.2 percent versus the euro to $1.0556, after seeing a low of about $1.0590 -- matching the multi-year low it hit on Friday -- earlier in the session. Dollar strength was by no means widespread, however, as the buck shed 0.2 percent against the yen to 118.92.

North Korea

Sam Stovall, senior investment strategist at Standard and Poor's, said investors were growing more optimistic about resolution to Iraq and North Korea, and recommended stocks that could benefit most from an economic recovery.  Listen to Stovall.

A U.S. envoy said that the United States is willing to consider energy aid for North Korea if Pyongyang ends nuclear weapons development.

Hopeful signs of a breakthrough in North Korea sent the Seoul stock market up 3 percent on Monday. In Europe, London's FTSE ended slightly lower, while Germany's DAX index rose after a key retailer assured on 2003 growth. Check out global markets page.

Earnings ahead

Apple (AAPL: news, chart, profile), Yahoo (YHOO: news, chart, profile), Continental Airlines (CAL: news, chart, profile), Bank of America (BAC: news, chart, profile), Fannie Mae (FNM: news, chart, profile), GM Hughes (GMH: news, chart, profile) and Genentech (DNA: news, chart, profile) are expected to report on Wednesday.

The earnings flood hits tidal wave proportions on Thursday, with updates expected from BankOne (ONE: news, chart, profile), Delta (DAL: news, chart, profile), EBay (EBAY: news, chart, profile), General Motors (GM: news, chart, profile), FleetBoston (FBF: news, chart, profile), Sears (S: news, chart, profile), Sun Microsystems (SUNW: news, chart, profile), United Technologies (UTX: news, chart, profile) and Wachovia (WB: news, chart, profile), among others.

A full plate of economic data awaits investors, starting with retail sales and import/export prices on Tuesday. Estimates for next week's key retail sales report are scattered.

Some economists think only late-year car incentives propped up a December reading otherwise dogged by a lackluster holiday. Others believe satisfactory -- if short of stellar -- December results will make for an encouraging final quarter. Read economic preview.

The Fed's Beige Book comes out on Wednesday, along with the producer price index and business inventories.

Jobless claims and the consumer price index await on Thursday. The week wraps up with international trade, industrial production and, importantly, consumer sentiment. Also, the key real estate market sector will look toward the NAHB housing index.

"There probably won't be anything to lead to an up, up and away kind of market, but once we get past Iraq, stocks may see a lift," Prudential's Piskorowski said. "Earnings pre-announcements were relatively benign. Companies are getting better at guiding down expectations." Allen Wan is a news editor for CBS.MarketWatch.com in New York.

www.naplesnews.com Monday, January 13, 2003 By NEAL LIPSCHUTZ, Dow Jones Newswires

NEW YORK — Pardon this party pooper, but it seems particularly odd that U.S. equity markets finished slightly higher Friday to close off a pretty strong week.

After all, didn't we on Friday get a surprisingly downbeat report on the economy that said about 100,000 jobs were eliminated in December? That figure came in the face of forecasts for a 30,000 job increase. That figure, combined with a revised November jobs number, now means nearly 200,000 jobs fled the scene in the final two months of 2002.

Oh sure, you can talk about seasonal factors and how it affects retail hiring, which was probably soft this year in line with the prescient caution store owners showed given the sluggish holiday shopping season.

You can say there's problems with the numbers because of those seasonal adjustments. The fact is the government data are all we have to work with, imperfect as those figures are. And 200,000 jobs gone in two months is not usually good news for stock market bulls.

Optimism is always a good thing. But it would be a bit more reassuring if there was more tactile support for the buoyancy in spirits of investors this time around. Yes, the President did introduce a tax-cutting package this week that if enacted would, among other things, eliminate investor taxes on dividends. If enacted and over the long run, that should improve interest in the purchase of equities and is therefore bullish.

If enacted and over the long run are the operative phrases of the prior sentence. The tax cut plan, news reports aver, has a tough fight ahead in Congress. Meanwhile, many pundits doubt the near-term stimulating impact of the proposed stimulus plan.

Nothing has brightened on the geopolitical front, the dangers of which have been widely heralded as the cause for the overwhelming caution in the economy and the extended soft spot we are now experiencing.

The hostile words and nuclear worries surrounding North Korea, if anything, grew more ominous.

Nothing happened this week that makes war with Iraq less likely. Any conflict, of course, beyond the real human costs, also opens up endless possibilities for economic problems.

And there's more than Iraq to worry about if you are focusing on oil. Venezuela remains in an apparent twilight zone-style standoff between supporters and opponents of its president. The general strike there is reportedly still pretty much in place and the nation's oil production is way down.

Yes, members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have said they will supply more oil and they meet this weekend in Vienna to discuss that issue. But OPEC ultimately works for its own interests, not those of oil consumers, even if it sometimes views those interests over a longer time frame.

Meanwhile, earnings reports for the fourth quarter are about to flood in from U.S. companies. Everyone knows the fourth quarter was weak, so will weak earnings be dismissed by optimistic stock investors as they are reported?

Maybe. There will be a lot of focus, as always, on what companies say about the current quarter, since the future is always more interesting and speculative than the past.

Employment, geopolitics and oil prices are all important. But in the end, its earnings growth that drives stock prices.

So maybe, given the healthy gains in share prices this week, investors are telling us that those earnings are finally about to turn around, if not in the current quarter, than in the next quarter.

Optimism is always a good thing. But it would be a bit more reassuring if there was more tactile support for the buoyancy in spirits of investors this time around.

Neal Lipschutz is senior editor, Americas, Dow Jones Newswires.

www.forbes.com

All times GMT. Feedback welcome. Email comments to

charlotte.cooper@reuters.com, Reuters messaging

charlotte.cooper.reuters.com@reuters.net.

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MONDAY, JANUARY 13

HOLIDAYS

Japan (Coming of Age Day - No major events scheduled)

OPEC LIFTS PRODUCTION TO TAME OIL PRICES

OPEC on Sunday agreed to raise production to stave off

an

oil price shock threatened by a strike in Venezuela and

war in Iraq. Oil prices held steady in Asia on Monday as

the hike was seen as too little, too late. For more,   

double click on [nSP130797]. N/A - G10 CENTRAL BANKERS HOLD REGULAR BIS MEETING, Basel

Group of 10 central bankers hold a regular meeting at

the

Bank for International Settlements. 0930 - UK DECEMBER

PRODUCER PRICES, London

November input prices fell 3.4 percent on the month and

0.9 percent on the year while output prices slipped 0.2

percent on the month and gained 1.2 percent on the year.

Final M0 money supply for December is also due. N/A  -

GERMAN NOVEMBER INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION INDEX

Industrial output fell 1.3 percent on the month in

October and 1.4 percent on the year. 1700 - ECB CHIEF

ECONOMIST ISSING SPEAKS, Frankfurt

Otmar Issing makes closing speech at forum for

international financial journalists.

DEBT AUCTIONS

Italian Treasury auctions 3-, 5- and 30-year fixed rate

bonds paying coupons of 3.5, 3.5 and 5.75 percent

respectively. Subscriptions close at 1000 GMT.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 14 N/A - JAPAN CABINET MEETING, Tokyo

 Cabinet meeting followed by minister's regular news

 conferences, including Finance Minister Masajuro

Shiokawa

 and Trade Minister Takeo Hiranuma. N/A  - WORLD BANK

PRESIDENT VISITS TOKYO

James Wolfensohn visits Tokyo from January 14-17. 2350

(Mon) - JAPAN DECEMBER MONEY SUPPLY, BANK LENDING, Tokyo.

The Bank of Japan releases December money supply and

bank

lending data. Money supply rose 3.2 percent in November

from a year earlier, while bank lending fell 4.7

percent. 0000 - JAPAN ECONOMICS MINISTER TAKENAKA IN AUSTRALIA, Canberra

Japan's Economics and Financial Services Minister Heizo

Takenaka speaks at the Australian National University.

0500 - JAPAN NOVEMBER MACHINERY ORDERS, Tokyo

Core machinery orders fell 4.1 percent in October from

September.

DEBT AUCTIONS 0120 - Japan's Ministry of Finance offers

one-year Treasury

bills, results announced 0340 GMT. 0130 - Japan's MOF

announces issue amount of 30-year JGBs.

Debt calendar                        [D/DIARY]

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