TheStreet.com October 23, 2002
Line Up Your Sources for the War in Iraq
By David Edwards, Special to TheStreet.com
In 1815, banker Nathan Rothschild used advanced knowledge of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, provided by carrier pigeons, to front-run the British securities markets. In 1990, Wall Street traders introduced televisions to trading floors to get CNN's broadcasts from Baghdad. In the Internet era, there's almost too much information on what may well be the most advertised war in history. How do you separate information from opinion, opinion from propaganda?
By my estimates, the S&P 500 is about 15% lower and the price of a barrel of oil is $5 higher than they would be if war with Iraq was not on the horizon. Uncertainty about this war affects the prices of gold, treasury bonds, international markets and insurance rates on shipping. During the next few months, tracking any military action in Iraq is vital for investors -- and the smartest of the bunch will know where to find the most accurate and up-to-date information on the Web. Here's a list of the Web sites I am using to keep up with the events. Before you send me nasty emails calling me a war profiteer, let me point out that good information is critical to anyone with an interest in international affairs.
The Basics
The New York Times' and the Washington Post's Web sites are must reads for breadth and depth. Unfortunately, the Web sites aren't updated prior to the publishing of the paper editions, which limits real-time utility. The Economist, a British publication, publishes on a weekly schedule on its site, which permits a deeper analysis of events not just in the United States and Europe, but also in the Middle East, Latin America and Asia. A subscription to the site costs $69/year in the U.S., or get Web access for free with a $129 subscription to the magazine.
Breaking News
Watching CNN and MSNBC 24/7 is not practical for me, but checking these Web sites a couple of times a day gets me the on-air content pretty much in real time. You can subscribe to the optional "breaking news" email services. "Top Stories" at Yahoo!News includes AP and Reuters content. Most U.S. newspapers derive their international coverage from these two sources.
European Perspectives
How the Europeans perceive the Middle East is quite different from the American perspective. I check BBC World News, particularly the Middle East coverage and Agence France-Presse, which, for some reason, is available most conveniently at Yahoo!News Singapore. Another advantage of checking the European services is that they're six time zones closer to the action, so you may get full reports here before the American news services have filed their stories.
Middle Eastern Perspectives
There are a number of English-language Arab-world Web sites. It's critically important to see how U.S. actions are perceived in Middle Eastern countries (generally badly, whether we're dropping bombs or feeding refugees.) Western standards of fair reporting rarely apply, but two that are relatively light on propaganda are the Middle East Times, which is published out of Egypt, and DAWN, which is published out of Pakistan.
The most influential television service in the Middle East, al-Jazeera, updates its Web site only in Arabic. However, Ajeeb, a clearinghouse for news on and services in the Middle East, includes a software service that translates Arabic to English. The software isn't perfect (sometimes only parts of a Web pages are translated, and sometimes you end up with pidgin English), but I was able to read transcripts of bin Laden communiques 24 hours before they were available on CNN last winter.
Military Analysis
Janes is the most comprehensive digest of military news -- any takers for the "Explosive Ordnance Disposal" newsletter? -- but unfortunately, the individual services are priced in the hundreds to thousands of dollars. Abstracts, generally the first one-third of full articles, are free.
StratFor (Strategic Forecasting) is much more affordably priced at $120 a year, with many free reports. StratFor articles range from a five-part series on likely campaign strategies to hard-nosed analyses of American and European commercial interests in the Gulf; Arab state political interests; plus "situation reports" -- quick analyses of breaking news.
GlobalSecurity.org (not to be confused with globalsecurity.com, an amateur site), in addition to linking to numerous news articles, reprints complete U.S. Department of Defense news briefings, numerous photographs and gun camera videos. (Caution: The latter are pretty gruesome.) Based on their analysis of weather conditions, new moon, position of U.S. troops and carriers, GlobalSecurity.org has produced this handy clock counting down the days to Nov. 28 -- the date they expect hostilities to commence.
Lastly, it helps to look at actual maps of the countries involved. Try the CIA Factbook, Geography.About.com or Mapquest. In relative terms, Iraq is slightly larger than California, Israel slightly smaller than New Jersey. The arena of conflict, ranging from Turkey in the Northwest, to Iran in the East, to Saudi Arabia in the South, is about the same size as the continental U.S.
David Edwards is a portfolio manager and president of Heron Capital Management, a New York management firm, which is consistently ranked among the top 20 in its category by the Nelson's "World's Best Money Managers" survey. Edwards was a contributor to Harry Domash's Fire Your Stock Analyst: Analyzing Stocks On Your Own available at Amazon. At the time of publication, his firm held no positions in any companies named in this column, though positions may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Edwards appreciates your feedback and invites you to send it to David Edwards.
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