Gold -- Sharefin, 23:14:15 05/06/02 Mon Weak equity market sees investors making a new gold rush This highlights the counter-cyclical nature of gold relative to bonds and equities. A multitude of factors - technical, fundamental and cyclical - are responsible. But one thing seems certain: the price can go considerably higher, outperforming even the previous peak of $850 an ounce in January 1980. China's central bank is the most interesting example. China has foreign exchange reserves of $700bn, of which about 2 per cent is in gold. Last year, the Chinese declared their intention to increase this to between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of total reserves but were "persuaded" by the Americans to keep their reserves in dollars and treasury bills in return for American support for China's application to join the World Trade Organisation. Now that China is a member, it can change its reserve mix to whatever it wants. One great attraction for investors is the counter-cyclical properties of gold. Gold has a tendency to rise when bonds and equities are falling and vice-versa. The last decade saw a fall in nominal and "real" (inflation-adjusted) yields; bonds and equities rose as gold faltered. Gold & COTs -- Sharefin, 23:09:58 05/06/02 Mon CFTC Commitments: Gold Specs Hold Record Long Position Large non-commercial speculators increased their net long exposure in gold futures by 6,402 contracts to 46,067 contracts in the week to April 30 - the largest net long position non-commercial speculators have held for over 10 years, according to the latest data released Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Dealers at the time suggested speculative buying was behind the strength, and with further buying clearly in evidence this week as prices made further progress, that net long position is expected to grow by the next reporting period. "This may be a large number, and it may traditionally suggest this market is vulnerable to long liquidation, but you do not want to start selling while these guys are still buying," he said. "This is a confirming factor of the uptrend in prices, and as long as they (large speculators) continue adding to this long position, prices will continue to rise," he said. COT Charts  Gold -- Sharefin, 23:03:42 05/06/02 Mon Why mining stocks and gold stocks in particular? Why mining stocks and gold stocks in particular? The real answer is in the gold cartel, and whether it can continue to suppress gold prices in the face of investor FEAR, which is the real driver of international gold prices. The movement in gold prices and especially stocks has caught the attention of the talking heads in the media financial sites, and the Street itself. But, as a Bear Stearns 4.30.02 Comment pointed out; "We would not suggest investors attempt to identify one single event or fundamental factor that would explain gold's action." Yet ABW will attempt to do just that. Essentially, gold moves on FEAR. Fear of a financial collapse in Japan's banking system this March sent whole families of Japanese savers to their local gold dealers to pick up bars of gold. The Israel-Palestine hostilities make investors nervous, but not as nervous as suggestions that the US is on the verge of invading Iraq. Finally, the old "US dollar collapse" scenario has been dusted off and is again making the rounds. As mentioned in last week's ABW Weekly Market Letter, it's the prospect of a collapse in the US dollar that should make investors the most nervous. Having been burned both short-term and long-term on gold investments, both institutional investors and individual investors don't see a great role for gold in their portfolios. Studies by the US FED and others have shown little correlation between inflation and the price of gold, and there are better ways protect against inflation and hedge investments. Thus the only convincing reason to own gold is as an insurance policy against calamity, such as a crash in the US dollar. Moreover, for many years the price of gold has been controlled by a defacto cartel, such as the hedging operations of producers, monetary policy of the world's central banks, etc., much in the same way that the price of diamonds is controlled by DeBeers. Because individual investors have a history of getting into gold funds at just the wrong time, the fact that they aren't pouring into the sector now indicates that the rally in the metal may have further to run. To be a real bull on gold, however, requires; a) a very bleak world view, and b) an assumption that the powers will allow the price of gold to gravitate to its free market-determined price level, or simply lose control. The gold futures market is one of the smallest volume markets in the world. Yet the short position, via derivatives, is the largest in the world. Tiny market, massive shorts. If the gold cartel/monopoly were to ever lose control of the market, gold prices would explode. The rally we are now seeing is just a hint of such a move. Money -- Sharefin, 22:46:11 05/06/02 Mon Wizards Of Money Gold -- Sharefin, 21:05:46 05/06/02 Mon Derivatives may be the real bomb Buffett, the world's second richest person, made no reference to Middle East politics when he talked about the possibility of nuclear attacks on American soil. Buffett and his team of insurance executives, in their publicized comments this weekend, also talked about derivatives. He and his right-hand man rate derivatives somewhere below sewage. As the head of a large, multi-billion-dollar enterprise, Buffett and his partner, Charles Munger, are qualified to talk about the use of options, futures, lending, leverage and other practices known commonly as "derivatives." Buffett figures derivatives will mess up lots of companies. Berkshire Hathaway's reinsurance unit, General Re, is registering some losses as it closes the loop on derivatives contracts. Munger was quoted this weekend, at the annual Buffett-fest, as saying, "To say derivative accounting in America is in the sewer is an insult to sewage." Those derivative tangles could include, in a strange twist of fate, a few hedged gold companies. The gold sector is among the North American stock market's biggest gainers this year. Barrick, one of the world's largest bullion miners, uses written "call" option contracts and other derivative devices to enhance the price it gets for its ounces of gold. The so-called hedging in the "spot-deferred market" works well when gold is flat or down in price, not so well when gold prices are rising, as they are now. Doody at Gold Stock Analyst puts the negative swing of the company's hedge book at $507 million. "The sensitivity of the derivative portfolio now stands at about $21 million an ounce," says Douglas Pollitt at Pollitt & Co. in Toronto. "Each $1 an ounce upward move in the gold price sees the mark-to-market (of Barrick's derivative contracts) drop by about $21 million. At $350 an ounce, the mark-to-market would be over $1 billion in the red." Gold prices this year have risen to $312 an ounce from $270 at the start of January. Pollitt calculates the notional value of Barrick's spot-deferred contracts at 18 million ounces. "Add to this another 5 million in written call options, (which the company now calls 'variable priced sales contracts'), and, one way or another, the company is short about 23 million ounces of gold. This is a fantastic number and begs the question: Could Barrick cover even if they wanted to?" Of course, if gold prices were to shoot far higher, in rapid fashion, some hedged sellers of gold might find themselves delivering the metal at prices below the spot price of gold. Other distortions of the gold market are possible in a sharp gold rally. Pollitt, the Toronto analyst, says theory and reality are like night and day. "Converting dollars into gold is quite different than converting gold into dollars," he said Monday morning. Any whiff that Barrick had stepped into the ring looking for 23 million ounces would set the market ablaze." ---- Central Fund update: Gold fund's shares surge Shares of Central Fund of Canada (CEF: news, chart, profile), a closed-end fund that buys gold and silver bars, gained ground, outpacing the price of gold, on unprecedented volume Monday. "It's probably a sign that people really want to own gold," said John Hathaway of Tocqueville Gold Fund in New York. See Friday article. A director of Central Fund, which rose sharply Friday as well, said the fund's premium to net asset value is now 23 percent. Closed-end funds trade like stocks, and at a discount or premium to the net asset value of their holdings. In the case of Central Fund of Canada, those holdings are 163,000 ounces of gold and 8.1 million ounces of silver. "The premium hasn't been this high in many years and may be an all-time high," said Ian McAvity, a co-founder of the 19-year-old fund and a Toronto-based newsletter editor. Gold prices Monday were basically flat and did not provide a reason for the fund's 9 percent jump in price in trading of more than 1.4 million shares on the American Stock Exchange. The Central Fund's president, Stefan Spicer outside Hamilton, Ontario, said the company is the only closed-end fund in the world "that I know of" that owns physical gold and silver on behalf investors. "Our costs for storage and insurance, and the management fee, are less than 1 percent," said Spicer, whose father began the fund in 1961. In 1983, the fund was converted into a closed-end fund that only invested in gold and silver. One of the fund's holders, Eric S. Sprott of Sprott Asset Management, said he bought 90,000 shares on behalf of clients Monday. "There's no way to buy actual gold conveniently," said Sprott, who in April bought a private placement of Central Fund worth $25 million Canadian. Sprott owns large pieces of several North American gold companies, including 10 percent of Cambior (CBJ: news, chart, profile), he said. Hathaway, a leading gold mutual fund manager and one of gold's leading supporters, said individuals may feel they need to own gold instantly. The purchase of actual bullion and gold coins involves time, storage fees and often, insurance. Hathaway was somewhat concerned about the closed-end fund's rise in the face of a flat gold price. "It may mean we need some sort of short-term correction in the gold rally - it's hard to say," Hathaway said. Spicer, the fund's president, said delivery times for gold into the company's Canadian vaults have lengthened to two weeks from an average of one week. "The delivery times are getting longer and longer," Spicer said. Such delivery logjams could lead to a so-called backwardation of gold prices, in which spot prices for gold bullion are higher than the price for delivery in three to six months.  KGC -- Mike K., 08:42:19 05/06/02 Mon DJ. Kinross Gold/Hedging -2: Financed Timmins Buy >KGC TORONTO, May 02, 2002 (ODJ Select via COMTEX) -- (Dow Jones)--Kinross Gold Corp. (KGC) plans to deliver into its "relatively small" gold forward sales and won't replace these hedges due to the "improving environment for the gold sector and for Kinross in particular." In a press release Thursday, the company said its small position in call options sold is left over from a financing strategy to acquire a part of its Timmins, Ont., land position in the fall of 1999, when the gold price became very volatile after establishing a 20-year low in August 1999. Kinross said it entered into gold forward sales contracts, spot-deferred forward sales contracts and written call options for some portion of expected future production to mitigate the risk of adverse price fluctuations. An April 24, OsterDowJones reported that the latest Gold Survey 2002, conducted by London-based analysts Gold Fields Mineral Services, found that the global gold producer hedge book contracted by a net 147 metric tons during 2001, and marked the second consecutive annual decline in outstanding hedge positions. Company Web site: http://www.kinross.com -Nora Devine; Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5388 US$ Dollar "Weakness" -vs- Euro "Strength" -- ThaiGold, 22:35:14 05/05/02 Sun Hello Nick... Some of your readers may enjoy this, about Gold and Fiat Strengths and Weaknesses... Toot-Toot... Wrote it myself.!. {wink} http://209.55.84.52/76552/190.html Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 21:55:13 05/05/02 Sun http://home.columbus.rr.com/rossl/gold.htm Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1,613.03 + Dow 1,0006.63 = 11,619.66 divide by 2 = 5,809.83 Ponzi Up 22.53 from last week! The plunge protection team kept things above the 5750 Ponzi line . I notice that the PPT defends this line aggressively every time . I think they will pass below it real soon. Like it or not. Thanks for the link RossL Go Gold Go GATA $hifty Gold -- Sharefin, 21:19:47 05/05/02 Sun Westernisation of India a worry for gold "Western habits of spending and saving are being transferred to the east," Smith points out. "As India gets richer, people are turning to alternative methods of investing and saving. GDP [gross domestic product] in India has been growing but gold demand has gone ex-growth since 1988." He intends to touch on this important topic during his presentation at the San Francisco conference next month organised by the London Bullion Market Association and the Gold and Silver Institutes. Smith suggests: "For gold this is crucial. Because of various factors - an inadequate banking system, the need for fathers to provide dowries for daughters, the caste system and so on - gold is the preferred method of saving in India and this has been the bedrock for global gold demand growth in the 1990s." Lenny's Daily Commentary -- Sharefin, 20:43:44 05/05/02 Sun GENERAL COMMENTS: There has also a "sea change" in the nature of such investment demand. Previously, buyers of gold participated in the "physical" markets, buying bars or coins. Now, recent buyers of gold are demanding "paper" gold through the derivatives, futures, or options markets. They want the leverage and the safety and security of dealing in a completely regulated environment. This trend can be summarily proven by looking at the volume of business recorded by the LBMA vs. that which occurs on the regulated futures markets in New York. Trading volumes in London, the largest "physical" gold market in the world, continue to post lower results, while open interest in New York continues to rise to recent record levels. We are also seeing that the old-time investors in gold are actually selling into this rally, and not much physical buying is occurring. When investor interest in physical gold is high, premiums on gold coins rise. Even as gold continues to make 2-year highs, premiums on gold coins such as US Eagles remain quite low and well below replacement costs at the US Mint. Perhaps even a better example is the sad case of US $20 Liberty Head gold coins in XF/AU condition (slightly circulated). These numismatic coins, which were minted from the 1850's to 1907 (now almost at least 100 years old), are trading in the market for just $15 to $25 USD (each coin contains .9675 oz. of pure gold) above their precious metal melt content, probably as low a premium as has been seen since the 1970's. This fact would certainly infer that "old-time" investors are selling as new investors are buying. But the new investors are seeking investment venues with greater transparency, greater leverage, and greater security, and are shunning the old investment vehicles such as coins. I would expect that this trend will continue, to the financial detriment of those owners of physical gold coins and bars. I urge readers of this commentary, who hold physical coins, to call our offices (afternoons are best) for a discussion of possible strategies to avoid further losses. Historically, on many sharp gold rallies, such coins have traded at or below spot, and if gold continues to rally, as many analysts and I foresee, gold coins may continue to lose value in relation to their gold content. ------ The above smells of a Blanchard style move. What's the bet that by the time this gold bull runs through, that the above comments have about faced. What's the bet that by the time this gold bull has run it's race, that the paper gold holders have been burnt, whilst the physical POG has steadily risen to new levels never seen before. Lenny's comments here kind of remind me of the brokers touting Enron on it's way out the door. I guess if you love & trade fiat then that's all you'll ever understand. To see what is going on in the financial world and the timing thereof & to tout paper bullion smacks of not understanding the process in motion. Fiat -- Sharefin, 20:33:09 05/05/02 Sun Classic Financial Scandals BCCI, Barings, Daiwa, Sumitomo, Credit Lyonnais, Bre-X ... etc. Fiat -- Sharefin, 20:25:00 05/05/02 Sun How Corrupt Is Wall Street? The damage goes way beyond the tattered reputations of the firms and their beleaguered analysts. The entire economy depends on the financial system to raise and allocate capital. And that financial system, in turn, is built on the integrity of its information. Should investors lose confidence in that information, it could deepen and prolong the bear market, as wary investors hesitate to put money into stocks. And it could easily put a damper on the economy if companies are less willing--or less able--to raise capital on Wall Street. "One of the precious things we have is the integrity of the financial markets. If that changes it could have dramatic repercussions on the dollar, on domestic inflation, on the economy," ------ Just remember who is selling you your gold stocks. The fiat paper pushers!!!! And some gold companies are no more than Enron's in their accounting methods. Derivatives et al...... Deja Vu -- Sharefin, 18:49:15 05/05/02 Sun A crock of greed - Rainbow's End: The Crash of 1929 The Wall Street Crash of 1929 was the greatest convulsion in the history of the stock market. Between October 23rd-31st, 70.8 million shares were traded, as speculators of every hue panicked and unloaded stock onto a market where there were no longer any buyers. In less than a month, the Dow Jones index recorded a 39 per cent drop in value, plummeting from 326.51 on October 23rd to 198.69 on November 13th. Small-time speculators were ruined to a man and woman, and the big fish, whether stock-exchange professionals or corporate raiders, took severe and sometimes terminal punishment. The beauty of Maury Klein's scholarly but very readable book is that he always provides the human face of this tragedy-farce alongside the statistics and economic models. Groucho Marx, for example, already suffering from a 'money complex', became even more neurotic after losing dollars 250,000 in the crash. Why did the crash happen and what was its connection with the Great Depression of the 1930s that followed? On the latter point, Klein's answer is unequivocal: there was no connection. The economic depression, an entirely distinct phenomenon from the Wall Street Crash, did not begin until late 1930, by which time the stock market had recovered. So what caused the crash? Klein reviews various theories in turn and finds them all unconvincing. So: excess capacity, underconsumption, contraction of investment, foreign trade, the gold standard and many other economic 'models' are found wanting. In the end, Klein opts for human hyper-irrationalism as the key factor. There had been a six-year bull market, and people began to think there was no limit to the possible growth of stock exchange values. Klein quotes one economic pundit in ironical mood: 'the basic delusion was that we had entered a fourth-dimensional economic world. The wonderful feature of the new world was that all possibilities of increase were infinite. There was no longer any limit upon the rise of common stocks. Since this was so obvious to everyone, it followed that common stocks could not fall. How could they fall? There was no reason for people ever to sell them.' Klein demonstrates that both structural and contingent factors in American history in the 1920s reinforced basic human greed and the unattractive, but very human, desire for people to make fortunes without working. The rate of change was one underrated factor, for American life in the 1920s was going through a multi-faceted revolution at all levels, symbolised by such discrete phenomena as automobiles, aeroplanes, psychoanalysis and the movies. In economic terms, the decade saw Americans generating surpluses that enabled them to play the market. But the stock exchange system itself was tailor-made to enhance greed and allay rationality. Basically, speculators could gamble on an instalment plan. This was known as 'buying on margin', whereby one bought shares for as little as 10 per cent per cent cash down, borrowing the remainder from a broker and using the enhanced value of the shares as collateral. As long as the shares augmented in value, the broker would never 'call in the margin' or demand cash for the other 90 per cent. The brokers in turn got their funds at a lower rate of interest from banks or some other source. So, every link in the speculative chain was making a profit. It was pyramid-buying with a vengeance. It was obvious that if the entire machine ever went into reverse and brokers started calling in their margins, catastrophe would result. But it was just that exact possibility that was discounted. In theory, the financial system was controlled by the federal reserve bank, which in turn controlled all other banks and their lending. But there was a loophole which eventually became a crack in the financial universe. Instead of keeping their surplus cash in banks, corporations began investing it in the market in the form of short-term 'call loans' - loans which could be terminated at a moment's notice but which yielded rates of interest anywhere between 10 per cent and 20 per cent. The federal reserve had no control over these outside bodies, which by the time of the crash supplied 58 per cent of all call loans. If just one corporation decided that the market had reached a high enough level, and asked for its money back, that could trigger a panic and the entire multiplier effect would go into reverse. It was potentially nuclear fission at the financial level, which is why all Klein's 'energy' metaphors, especially that of the tsunami, are peculiarly appropriate. In October 1929, all the worst forebodings of the market Cassandras came to pass. The lucky ones got out just in time. Those who failed to do so sank into ruin, despondency or suicide. Klein's book is full of amazing individual stories illustrating the vanity of human wishes and the way greed can blot out reason. By October 1929, he convincingly demonstrates, the American people were in a state of mass hysteria. Even so-called balanced people could talk of nothing but the stock market, sex was edged aside as the favourite topic of conversation, and human libido seemed to go into limbo or be sublimated into the yearning for a quick buck. Everyone had heard of someone close who had made a fortune buying on margin; naturally nobody heard of any losers. This is why Klein is disinclined to attribute the crash to deep-seated reasons. In the market, human psychology is all, and in 1929 the basic problem was that too many people held too much overvalued stock on borrowed money. Klein's conclusion is that the crash may ultimately be inexplicable both in structural and 'conjunctural' terms; it may simply have been a random concatenation of aleatory circumstances, the historical equivalent of winning the lottery and, as such, irreducible to notions of probability and causality. But he has a lot of fun demonstrating this, and this careful and erudite volume is, above all, a good read, enjoyable, provocative and absorbing. Sharefin/Silver -- auspec, 09:43:46 05/05/02 Sun Thanks for your input and comments,Sharefin! Govts nationalizing mines? I hope I'm a step ahead of them by concentrating on the explorers. W/o incentive to explore it will totally cease so they cannot allow that to happen. It also make me have a hare {hair?} trigger with some of these investments. For example, lots of money would be off the table and brought to safety long before we see $100 POS. The really interesting thing about silver and recession/depression is that the supply of silver will plummet along with any decreased base metal production. That has what has happened with the recent slowdown and I see no way around it. Pretty cool, really. Another one of the keys I learned in writing this article is the fact that base metal mining will not be ramped up tremendously to get significantly greater amounts of silver with a higher POS either. You are absolutely right that we must watch and see the coming events unfold w/o pre-conceived notions of the outcome. Mining supply will be a piece of cake to observe over time. I'm not locked in to anything, but watching the overloaded basket VERY closely. I do not see a scenario where miners will have trouble raising capital if there mining projection numbers are coming in glowingly. They may have to finance with the US banana or the Canadian equivalent, but there is too much power $ behind mining and resources for it to wither away. A big part of what has been happening worldwide has simply been a ' resource grab' by elitist entities. Projects folding but ending up in the hands of the 'financiers'. Paper certainly does have a problem on its hands! Best to you and thanks for the input! Gold -- Sharefin, 07:16:10 05/05/02 Sun Costs hammer Barrick profit Barrick Gold Corp., the world's second-biggest gold producer, reported an almost 50% drop in first-quarter profit due to higher costs and a small loss on derivative gold sales. Gold -- Sharefin, 07:08:10 05/05/02 Sun Questions Asked Of Gold's Price Foundations, Potential -- Weakening Dollar Key To Sustained Buying -- Will Producers Continue To Buy Back Hedges? -- Mideast Tensions Continue To Be A Factor Gold -- Sharefin, 07:04:36 05/05/02 Sun Kinross plans to halt hedging gold prices Kinross Gold Corp., the third-biggest Canadian gold producer, will stop selling gold at pre-determined prices before production because rising metal prices have made the practice less profitable. Kinross has advance sales for 539,000 ounces of gold through 2005. The company will fulfill those contracts and not replace them, Robert Buchan, Kinross chief executive, said in an interview. Gold companies have been reducing the amount of production they sell in advance, a practice known as hedging, to take advantage of the rising gold price. "We are now in a new environment requiring a fresh look at our approach to gold hedging," Buchan said. Gold -- Sharefin, 07:00:17 05/05/02 Sun Why gold regained its glory Friday's price was the highest in two years. And, reports Andrew Donaldson , the good news is that the recovery is no flash in the pan Have gold's yellowing and lacklustrous fortunes been reversed? Yes. Ja. Yebo. Whichever way you say it, it is a common enough sentiment. Gold Fields president and chief operating officer-designate Ian Cockerill put it this way at the Paydirt Conference in Perth in March: "As they say in the movies, if it walks like a bull, and talks like a bull, then a bull it is." The Gulf War, he points out, was an example of "how the world was managed" during an era in which "the mighty dollar ruled supreme against all other currencies, including gold". The decline of gold as a reserve asset was, therefore, "hardly surprising". But last year's attacks on New York revealed the cracks in this "new world order" - cracks largely ignored. In Cockerill's words: "Virtually undetected and very gradually, over the past four or five years, a new uncertainty has crept into global affairs." Global economic uncertainty came first in Asia, then Mexico, then Argentina, and now Japan. Conflict is escalating in the Middle East. China's march to superpower status, to rival the US, continues unabated. Violent opposition to globalisation is growing dramatically. The spectre of global terrorism has emerged. Cockerill: "We are no longer a world at peace with itself. We are a world in conflict with many faceless enemies who are hard to identify or pin down." As a result of all this uncertainty, producers have seen an upsurge in interest in gold from retail investors. And despite the fact that demand outstrips new mine supply by more than 1 000 tons a year, the market is comfortable that supply deficit can be serviced from new mine supplies, supplemented by Central Bank sales and producer hedging. Cockerill points out that there has been very little investment in reserve replenishment or exploration since 1997. But a higher gold price, on a steady fixed course, could address that. Expecting a boom, the world's dormant lodes are being retapped. Gold Fields is reassessing its once unviable Libanon mine. Fiat -- Sharefin, 06:51:14 05/05/02 Sun U.S. Could Face Debt Crunch on June 28 Faced with a plunge in tax receipts, the Bush administration will run out of ways to maneuver around the federal debt ceiling and could default on payments to bondholders on June 28, sooner than previously expected, a senior Treasury official said yesterday. Gold -- Sharefin, 06:33:59 05/05/02 Sun Hedging strategies revisited after runup: Gold miners throw new wrinkle into market: Gold price dynamics For years, Barrick Gold Corp. swore by its hedge book. Now the company, the world's second largest gold producer, is gambling on the spot gold market. The move signals that biggest gold producers are bullish about prices, Mr. Norman explained. This leads smaller producers to unwind hedge their hedge positions and leads to gold purchases from investors hoping to profit from rising prices. "The bull run is very much in place," Mr. Norman said. "It's one of those rather nice, self-fulfilling things." "It confirms our view that gold producers look set to reduce their aggregate hedge books this year and this is one of the major positive factors in the gold market at the moment," said John Reade, metals analyst at UBS Warburg. But not every analyst agrees the unwinding of hedge books is a major contributor to the momentum. Brian Christie, precious metals analyst with Canaccord Capital Corp., believes the effect of hedge book reductions is more psychological than real. "I think there is still a significant amount of hedging out there. The slice of the pie is getting smaller, but the slice is not getting as small as some people believe," Mr. Christie said. Barrick's hedge book, for example, still holds 18 million ounces, or 22% of reserves. That production would be sold at an average minimum price of US$344, deliverable at the company's option over the next 15 years. AngloGold this year has reduced its hedge book by 2.3 million ounces to 12.3 million ounces. Newmont acquired a hedge book of eight million ounces of future production through the Normandy deal. Placer Dome Ltd. has hedged three years of its annual output of 2.5 million ounces. In the first quarter, its hedge program realized a US$65 premium over the average spot price of US$290. Gold -- Sharefin, 06:29:19 05/05/02 Sun Early COMEX gold up sharply as jobs data hit dollar COMEX gold took another stab at the highs early Friday, after a surprisingly big jump in the U.S. jobless rate rocked the dollar and kept the focus on gold as a safe-haven asset in an uncertain recovery environment. "There's not much activity though today. We've seen a little bit of fund buying off the weaker dollar," said Donald Eckert, global bullion risk manager at JP Morgan Chase. He continued, "I don't see enough buyers out there to take it through but it's definitely possible. If they start getting close and they smell stops above that, they'll definitely go for it." Narrow spreads between U.S. rates and gold yields eliminated gold's contango -- the premium earned by selling forward -- encouraging many producers to stop hedging future production and even buy back existing forward sales contracts. Dealers said producers have been actively buying gold during the rally. Gold -- Sharefin, 06:19:40 05/05/02 Sun Merger yet to hit its straps Although it outperformed the largest Australian-based gold producer Newcrest Mining [ASX:NCM] in the March quarter, number two ranked AurionGold [ASX:AOR] this week posted a subdued after tax profit of A$20 million for the period despite superb production figures. AurionGold's slightly higher than expected costs were offset by a healthy gold price received of A$581/oz, compared with the spot price average for the period of A$561/oz. But the disparity in the realised price may tighten considerably or be reversed in the coming quarters if the gold price continues to improve. According to JB Were, AurionGold could soon start to feel the heat of a heavy hedge load. "It is extremely difficult to predict an average price received above that of today's prevailing spot price," Preston said. "We would prefer to buy at a share price closer to our valuation." The Melbourne-based analyst placed a DCF valuation of A$2.40 a share on AurionGold, with upside to A$2.66. The market, buoyed by a higher gold price and takeover speculation, has rerated the stock and seems to have forgotten AurionGold is heavily hedged. As at the end of March, a total of 5.48 million ounces or 90 percent of its reserves were committed to a complex hedge book, which had a mark to market value of negative A$327.6 million (at a period end spot price of US$301.40/oz and A$570.29/oz). In addition, the company's foreign exchange book was also in the red, to the tune of $83.7 million (at an exchange rate of US$0.5285). Preston slapped a "hold" recommendation on the stock based on the exposure. Like Newcrest, AurionGold is contemplating a re-evaluation of its reserves by applying a higher benchmark gold price of A$500/oz. An increase in reserves would not only reduce the hedge level but also provide upside to valuations. Gold -- Sharefin, 06:13:56 05/05/02 Sun Harmony raises $112m, prowls SA South Africa's Harmony Gold [NASDAQ:HGMCY] raised $112 million earlier this week in an overnight share placement - it's fourth capital-raising exercise 12 months - and said the exercise would enable it to finance more acquisitions in South Africa. Commercial director, Ferdi Dippenaar, identified the purchase of two gold mines in the Free State province, St. Helena and Oryx, as targets: "If we can agree on value we will get there," he said of potential discussions with current owner, Gold Fields [NASDAQ:GOLD]. The $112 million share placement, exclusively with North American and European investors, is an impressive vote of confidence in the fortunes of the South African company. Silver -- Sharefin, 06:10:11 05/05/02 Sun Comex Silver Rallies 5c On Fund Buying Gold -- Sharefin, 06:08:55 05/05/02 Sun Gold Fields breezes to world summit South African gold has regained its position as the world's premier producer of gold after spending years juggling the twin perils of spiralling costs and decreasing orebodies. This was after producer, Gold Fields, affirmed it was the world's most profitable gold producer reporting yesterday a record two-thirds increase in net earnings for the March quarter. Dollar - Currency non grata -- Giovanni Dioro, 05:24:20 05/05/02 Sun Weak data give dollar investors the shivers LONDON The dollar plunged Friday after signs of softness in the U.S. economy heightened traders' fears that the conditions that favored a world-beating U.S. currency may be growing increasingly tenuous... read more  From kitco ... -- Delta.au, 01:52:46 05/05/02 Sun Date: Sat May 04 2002 23:27 ... still under construction, but...HGMCY the clear winner. MARCH numbers. Harmony pullin' away from the pack. http://www.pentaquest.com/earnings_giant.htm Auspec -- Sharefin, 23:26:10 05/04/02 Sat Just finished reading your article and thought of a few ideas to throw around. I think that there's one basic aspect that has been ignored throughout the whole theme. And that is - what are prevailing market & economic conditions? I believe that the financial markets are due for a major correction and therefore will impact greatly on all businesses. If the banks go ass-up in the coming meltdown then this will greatly impinge on companies and their ability to function let alone to consider start-ups. I truly believe that the only reason that we're having a gold bull & hence a silver bull is because the great paper bull is dying so all these markets are entwined. So we could well see the case where the precious metals explode as paper implodes and yet companies cannot obtain the necessary capitol to ramp up production. Also there is the scenario that we go into a depression after the markets melt down and demand falls precipitously for goods & services which could have massive effects on the supply/demand markets. Also be it that we go into a depression there's also that threat (which has recently been discussed) of Gov't nationalizing mines. I think that there's lots of variables which could tip the impact either one way or another and for us to judge these we must wait till we travel down that road. I think that we need to closely consider & follow what the economic & financial markets do before we attempt to judge the physical metal markets. The prosperity & economical wealth of today makes the world of today appear as abundant. But collapse the confidence of these paper markets and the world we'll be living in may have little bearing on the world of tomorrow. If the many houses of banking were to fall under their shackles of debts along with those who owe and war (serious war) were to impinge on reality then who really knows what will befall mankind. Basically I perceive gold/silver and the valuation thereof as a type of metronome which measures the confidence in fiat. Destroy the foundations of this confidence and who knows where the price of these monetary vessels will go. Auspec -- Sharefin, 22:14:54 05/04/02 Sat Here's the link When Silver Hits "The Wall" Then What? Dave -- Sharefin, 19:44:15 05/04/02 Sat Please refrain from posting such info here. There are a myriad of other websites where you'd be welcome to post your post but the theme of this site is precious metals. Hence your post will disappear. Nick Silver Article -- auspec, 16:02:52 05/04/02 Sat David Morgan of Silver-Investor.com recently suggested that I write a silver article about the mining cycle. The result of that suggestion is at the link below on his web site. Much of the line of reasoning in the essay has been sparked by those on the 'silver trail', David, Ted Butler and others. Snippet: "The purpose of this essay is to pursue an analysis of the coming silver bull market, specifically to get a feel for how long it is likely to last as well as how mining entities will respond to a sustained increase in the price of silver, say to the $30 to $50 range." http://www.silver-investor.com/WSHTW.htm Gold -- Sharefin, 19:40:02 05/03/02 Fri Hedging strategies revisited after runup Ross Norman, mining analyst with TheBullionDesk.com, said the move away from hedging has given a lift to gold prices. The move signals that biggest gold producers are bullish about prices, Mr. Norman explained. This leads smaller producers to unwind hedge their hedge positions and leads to gold purchases from investors hoping to profit from rising prices. "The bull run is very much in place," Mr. Norman said. "It's one of those rather nice, self-fulfilling things." Gold video -- Sharefin, 18:01:26 05/03/02 Fri Dazzling gold Gold at $1,000 an ounce? It's not as crazy as you think, says Thom Calandra. Our editor-in-chief also talks about Central Fund of Canada, which stores metals in bulk. Scroll down to find the video release Gold -- Sharefin, 17:15:38 05/03/02 Fri IMF is backing the wrong horse again Until a year or so ago, the Chinese central bank held about 80 percent of its foreign reserves in dollars, with the balance largely spread across the Japanese yen, the British pound and gold. The exact ratios are a state secret. It is, however, the stated policy of the government to reduce the proportion of the reserves held in dollars -- and yen and sterling -- and to raise the proportions held in the euro and gold. It is thought the dollar may now account for less than half the total. In itself there is no problem with the change in the ratios in which different currencies and gold are held in the reserves portfolio. There has been talk, however, about changing the method by which the yuan is valued in international transactions. Instead of being tied to the dollar with rates against other currencies determined in the market, there are indications that the government is moving toward what is known as a "basket system." In this system, the value of the currency is tied not to one currency but a number of currencies. The weight of each currency in the basket varies, possibly according to the share of trade that China does with each of the countries whose currency is in it. If China is moving toward a basket system for valuing the yuan, that will spell trouble for Hong Kong. The U.S. dollar is hopelessly overvalued. It is no longer a question of if it will collapse -- possibly by as much as 40 percent on average -- but when. Since the yuan has had its basket dollar weight reduced to, say, 50 percent while remaining at 100 percent for Hong Kong, the rate between the Hong Kong dollar and the yuan would have to change. Gold -- Sharefin, 17:04:22 05/03/02 Fri Riding The Golden Bull Gold -- Sharefin, 17:00:52 05/03/02 Fri The bull in gold bull-ion With gold equities selling for extreme multiples of operating cash flow, veteran bullion analysts say the metal, not the companies, will draw the next round of hot money. On Friday, as the dollar lost ground to the euro and other major currencies, talk surfaced of a massive move of money into bullion futures and the spot gold market. "While gold has actually risen in price, in 2000 and again in 2001, gold stocks have been the chief beneficiary," says Robert Bishop at The Gold Mining Stock Report. Gold since Jan. 2 has risen about 16 percent in the spot market, to $312 an ounce Friday afternoon. Gold-mining shares, and the mutual funds attached to them, have gained 60 percent and, in some cases, much more in the same span. "Shares are both discounting higher gold prices and way ahead of where they should be at this point in a new gold cycle," Bishop says. "One outcome is that we may enter a period where gold outperforms the shares, or, more likely, where continued advances by gold result in less robust performance on the part of gold stocks." If the actual metal is setting up for a 20 percent or greater gain in coming months, and some observers say $1,000 an ounce is possible in coming years as the dollar collapses under the weight of a swollen current account deficit, how do you buy gold -- and not gold miners -- these days? (The dollar Friday was sinking 1.4 percent against the euro to 91.14 cents - its lowest point since Oct. 16 of last year.) Gold -- Sharefin, 16:55:45 05/03/02 Fri COMEX gold steamrolls to new high on weak dlr, stocks COMEX gold rallied to a new 17-month high Friday afternoon, as a tumbling dollar and worries about the U.S. economic recovery fanned the flames under the 2002 bull market. A big fall in the broad stock market also funneled money into gold and gold shares, analysts said. "With the stock market weakness and the dollar down significantly today against the major currencies, that was obviously the major impetus for taking this market up through the recent highs," said David Meger, analyst at Alaron Trading in Chicago. "The dollar has lost a lot of value in the last two days," said a bullion dealer. "Also, it's a long weekend. You've got no liquidity in Japan because that's closed and no liquidity in London because that's closed." Gold -- Sharefin, 21:39:22 05/01/02 Wed Austria gold coins sell briskly in Japan According to Austrian Mint officials, 60,000 ounces (about 1.86 tons) of the gold coins were sold in Japan from January to April, five times the volume in the same period last year. Gold -- Sharefin, 21:32:48 05/01/02 Wed SA gold leader confirms global strategy Gold -- Sharefin, 21:23:25 05/01/02 Wed Gold bulls see further big gains Gold shares may not pause in a powerful rally that has made miners the top performing stock market group of the past three months, analysts and fund managers say. Nearly all of those who follow gold companies or invest in them on behalf of clients expect further, strong gains this year. Even Wall Street analysts, caught with their pants down on the metal's relentless rise, are scrambling to raise their price targets for bullion. The latest was Michael Dudas at Bear Stearns, who raised his 2002 gold price estimate to $310 per ounce from $300 and set a 2003 forecast of $325 per ounce. "It's getting crowded in the bull pit," quipped Andy Smith, precious metals analyst at Mitsui Metals in London. "Worryingly so. Like Japanese grandmothers, analysts buy at the top, usually." Money manager Adrian Day, who has been investing in mining companies on behalf of clients for 20 years, is confident gold will add to its gains. "With several fundamental factors turning a little softer -- Middle East tensions cooling a little, the Japanese stock market recovering, U.S. accounting shenanigans off the front pages -- gold could pull back a little," says Day at Global Strategic Management in Maryland. "But this is all short term, and it would be a dangerous game for most investors who are not significantly overweight gold to sell now and aim to buy back later," says Day, whose favorites are the unhedged miners that sell all of their production in the spot market. "If gold moves up this year to $350-$360--which is certainly a realistic expectation as the dollar starts to fall -- then the major unhedged gold stocks will move much higher," says Day. Gold -- Sharefin, 21:25:43 04/30/02 Tue Gold warrants making millionaires Traders have been filling their boots with gold call warrants and are raking in obscene profits as a consequence of bullion's surge beyond $310 per ounce. Over the past month gold warrants have dominated the warrant board with five of the top eight most liquid instruments all listed over South Africa's major gold producers. Despite gold touching a two-year high of $312 yesterday, demand for call warrants over Anglogold, Gold Fields and Harmony remains brisk. Gold -- Sharefin, 20:15:50 04/30/02 Tue Euro Area Gold Assets Fall on Austrian Bullion Sale The Austrian National Bank sold 30 metric tons of gold, said Reinhold Wanka, an assistant to the head of the treasury front office at the central bank. The sale was the last tranche of a total of 90 tons Austria had agreed to sell over a five-year period in 1999, he said in an interview. Gold -- Sharefin, 20:10:35 04/30/02 Tue Deutsche ups gold outlook for next 3 years Deutsche Bank said on Tuesday it was raising its forecasts for the average prices of gold over the next three years because of political tensions, strong market fundamentals and current high prices. Deutsche lifted its forecast for the metal for this year by 4.2 percent or $11.90 to an average of $296.90 a troy ounce from its previous $285. The bank added $10 or 3.4 percent to its original forecast for 2003 to an average of $300 from $290 previously, with its assessment for 2004 rising by $13 or 4.5 percent to $305 from $292. "With prices closing on April 29 in London at their highest level since February 8 2000, our rising price profile built around a marked change in the dynamics of producer hedging and increased investment demand has already been exceeded," Deutsche Bank said. "This has largely been the result of renewed strength in safe haven investment buying in the face of rising political tensions in the Middle east, mounting inflationary concerns fuelled by a weakening U.S. dollar and rising oil prices, continued investor concern about the security and stability of the Japanese banking system and weakness in the U.S. equity market," Deutsche said. Signs that global mined supply of gold may have reached a plateau for the first time in decades and a move by the same miners to cut back the volume of unmined gold they sell forward have also bolstered the market. Anglogold -- Sharefin, 20:07:50 04/30/02 Tue S Africa AngloGold To Cut Hedge Book By 1.7M Oz South Africa's AngloGold Ltd. (AU) aims to continue cutting its gold hedge book by about 1.7 million ounces a quarter during the rest of 2002, market conditions permitting, a company executive told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday. This would reduce AngloGold's hedge position to some 7.8 million ounces by the end of the year from its current position of 12.9 million ounces. Silver -- Sharefin, 20:05:22 04/30/02 Tue COMEX silver tumbles as funds head for exits COMEX silver skidded 2.25 percent to a one-week low on Tuesday, as short-term bulls took profits on the recent run up in prices, dealers said. "Funds who bought last week were bailing out this week. They were looking for the big run up. It never came, so they dumped," said a floor broker. --- AngloGold said it had reduced its hedge book by 1.7 million ounces in the March quarter to 12.9 million ounces and subsequently closed another 643,000 ounces by the end of April. Gold -- Sharefin, 20:01:58 04/30/02 Tue ECB's Welteke: Oil Prices, Euro and Gold Sale Outlook London, April 30, 2002 (Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bundesbank President Ernst Welteke, a member of the European Central Bank's governing council, talks with Bloomberg's Edie Lush about the outlook for stability of global oil prices, the rate of economic recovery in Europe and in the U.S. and the Bundesbank's plans to sell gold. 02:11 Outlook for German inflation; oil price stability, risks 01:39 Euro-dollar exchange rate; European, U.S. economic growth 02:55 ECB's strategy to improve transparency; the voting system 00:56 Bundesbank's council changes; gold agreement, possible sale Gold -- Sharefin, 19:59:36 04/30/02 Tue As good as gold Where is the long term price going? Kevin says: "I think there is no doubt that the perceptions of those who are involved in gold is that the outlook is a lot more positive than it was. "I think from this point onward gold can start a gradual march higher. I certainly see gold prices of £320 to £330 by the end of this year and I think they are sustainable." Silver -- Sharefin, 19:57:06 04/30/02 Tue Silver Demand Expected to Rebound in 2002, CPM Report Says World silver demand will rebound this year as economies recover from recession and prompt jewelers and other manufacturers to use more of the metal, a research company predicted. Industrial demand for silver is expected to rise 3.7 percent to 860.7 million ounces in 2002, CPM Group said in an annual report. Demand last year suffered its biggest drop in 16 years, declining 4.7 percent, the company said. Demand for silver is expected to exceed supply of 739 million ounces by 121.7 million ounces, the report said. As has been the case for the past 12 years, the deficit will be made up by the sale of metal in private hands, the report said. Mine production is expected to fall 0.3 percent to 501.4 million ounces and there will be a 0.5 percent decline in the supply of recycled scrap metal to 202.6 million ounces, the report said. Production increases in Mexico and Peru, the biggest suppliers, will be offset by declines in the U.S. and Australia, CPM said. The large supply of silver in private hands has limited silver-price rallies in recent years. Private investors held about 2 billion ounces of silver in 1990, excluding coins, and are now estimated to be holding about 404 million ounces, CPM said. That would be enough to cover the supply deficit for ``three to five years,'' Christian said. There are another 468 million ounces of silver held by investors in the form of coins, the report said. Berkshire Hathaway Inc., an investment company run by billionaire Warren Buffett, announced in February 1998 that it had bought 130 million ounces of silver, which it said was a fifth of world supply. The company hasn't reported on its silver holdings since then. Much of the privately held silver is ``well dispersed around the world, held by small investors,'' Christian said. Silver -- Sharefin, 19:53:21 04/30/02 Tue Crossing currents Robert Chapman - Gold Commentary -- Sharefin, 22:54:11 04/29/02 Mon We also do not believe that gold is higher because of eminent inflation. It's higher due to several other reasons. It's the dollar. Other major countries are raising rates and the FED can't. If it does we go straight back into inflation so the dollar will drop 5-15% this year, yields will climb due to less payout and gold will move higher. If gold breaks over $330 - $340 and ounce there is nothing to stop it until it hits $512 an ounce. We believe this will happen. We are still in stage two with two or three more stages to go. Soon large amounts of foreign capital in the US will move to other currencies and gold. When that move picks up steam the FED will raise rates. The recovery will officially abort and gold will rocket. Japanese March gold sales were one-third less from the gain in February purchases but at 13.18 tons was equal to the strongest months in the past 15 years. We believe the resignation of Bill Demchak, head of global structed finance and credit at JP Morgan Chase has a great deal to do with the inevitable collapse of the company's gold derivative positions. We could be very close to a major scandal and a major breakout in gold. One thing for sure England is through selling gold. They have about 300 tons left and they may well need that to join the Euro. Barry Cooper at CIBC World Markets in Toronto favorite gold stock is the unhedged *Goldcorp (GG-NYSE). The Canadian producer's shares are up 41% this year. Most of Goldcorp's gold comes from the Red Lake district of N. W. Ontario, an area that has produced some 16 million ounces of gold since the 1930's. Goldcorp's average grade from its underground Red Lake mine was about two ounces per ton versus a worldwide underground average of .25 ounces per ton. Cooper estimates Goldcorp will be able to pull as many as six million ounces of gold from the mine. Production this year will approach 500,000 ounces. With Goldcorp shares, which sell for about 28 times current earnings, you are buying an option to participate in future gold rallies and on their expanding their reserves through discovery. The bottom in gold has now firmly been set. The next phase will take us to the old high of $850 an ounce. You've seen the gold shares have led the way with outsized gains while bullion has simply set a bottom support level. The gains in shares during the next phase should be simply astronomical. We believe that *Agnico-Eagle (AEM-NYSE) and *Goldcorp (GG-NYSE) will lead the charge. Mega hedger Barrick Gold announced a 3.5 million ounce gold discovery at its Alto Chicama property in north-central Peru. That is 110 tons of gold that might show up in six years. Gold continues to hold over $300 an ounce as the Japanese, Arabs, Russians, Chinese and others continue to buy physical gold. Gold funds were up 37% in the first quarter while the S&P 500 was flat. Gold funds are up 72% in the last 12 months. In spite of this, cash flows into gold funds are at a trickle. The investor is in denial. They'll join us somewhere near the top. The ESF, Exchange Stabilization Fund, continues to sell gold into the market to suppress its price. We'd guess soon they'll have no more to sell. AIG is now the designated seller taking the dubious mantel from Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase. That's Mr. Greenberg and his CFR cohorts. Eight months ago we recommended Kinross at $.36, then we recommended it again at $.49 a share. It recently traded at $1.72. As we said several months ago this is an anxious buyout candidate. We hadn't said much about the company in the ensuing months because in that production category we felt AEM and GG were better quality long-term holds. We get weary listening to the garbage that passes for news or objective opinion. Philip Klapwijk, managing director of Gold Fields Minerals Services said, it will take much worse political crisis to send gold higher. We do not quote GFMS figures in our publication because they are not worth the paper they are written on. We believe GFMS is in the back pocket of the gold manipulation cartel. This is just another effort to talk gold down. Every industry has its meatheads like GFMS, Barrick, Placer Dome and AngloGold. It's difficult having the enemy within the gates, but we can overcome their derision. The gold cartel must be having fits. Resistance at $305.00 and $307.00 have been broken. The Cartel is doing its best to beat back the charge. On the enemy front line is The Exchange Stabilization Fund, but it will be to no avail. The dollar has come unglued and it hasn't even dropped much versus the pound, euro and Swiss franc. They will be back Thursday night in Asia and in Europe fighting to save their hides. All indices except the Dow have broken and the Dow will follow in spite of the intercession of The Plunge Protection Team. After $310.00, its $313.00 then $325.00 to $330.00. They even dragged out GFMS to trash gold, but that didn't work. We then saw other comments that gold shares were overpriced by a newsletter writer. We guess being old and having been involved in gold and silver shares for 42 years gives you a leg up. We can remember when it was common for gold and silver shares to sell at 150 times earnings. Thus, we find the overpriced comment stupid. We are in a battle for our freedom and gold is the key to that freedom. It is imperative that gold moves higher because as it does it will expose the entire elitist scheme for world government. They can't make their plan work at $500, $850 or $1,500 an ounce. It will expose the dollar as a fiat currency and all currencies not backed by gold as fiat. Who would want a world currency with no backing after seeing gold climb in a classic flight to quality? Make no mistake the stakes are enormous and we are at war. We shall win. When the public finds out what's been done to them the carnage of the French Revolution will look like child's play. Billions of dollars have been lost by investors due to this criminality. Right now there are so many factors that are positive for gold and silver it is overwhelming. Also, keep in mind that the dollar is at 115.76, support is at 114.64. The dollar is already down 10% versus a few currencies. The key currencies that have to break and thus far are only up slightly are the pound, euro and Swiss franc. If they break further 114.64 will be broken and the dollar will go into freefall. We also expect as the dollar falls interest rates will move higher as foreigners recognize there will be no further recovery and move out of dollar assets into other currencies and gold. Are the Japanese really going to sit idle as the Japanese economy and the dollar collapse? We don't think so. They'll spend more of those now uninsured funds to buy other assets, some $500 - $700 billion worth. The FED can't raise interest rates because there will be no recovery and all those interest rate swaps have put corporations into short-term paper. This is a classic trap. While this plays out the demand for physical gold has exploded. That is in spite of the protestations of The World Gold Fantasy Council and GFMS. They are either bought and paid for by the elitists or they are incredibly stupid. How can the stock market stay at such lofty prices with unbelievably bad news? We recommended shorts on AOL, Tyco, Dynegy and many others months ago. They are collapsing, yet the market doesn't go down. It doesn't go down because the FED and our government are manipulating the market. We see scandal after scandal and the market stays the same. Now you know where your tax dollars are going. Wait until the reckoning. Gold -- Sharefin, 22:47:21 04/29/02 Mon Gold Fields to list on NYSE South Africa's second-largest gold mining group, Nasdaq-listed Gold Fields Limited, announced on Monday that it will list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on May 9. The company will trade under the ticker symbol GFI--the same as that used on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange where its primary listing is held. The company will list American Depositary Shares (ADSs), administered through The Bank of New York, with one ADS representing one ordinary share. Gold -- Sharefin, 22:44:15 04/29/02 Mon Japan and Gold It has been widely reported that the Japanese have ramped-up their buying of gold over the past several months, with this heightened investment demand usually being attributed to a) the removal of government guarantees on some bank deposits, b) the depreciation of the Yen, and c) fears regarding the solvency of Japanese banks. The amount of gold being imported into Japan each month is still quite small in comparison to the size of the world's gold market (only 13 tonnes were imported in March). However, a continuation of the current trend would have enormous implications for the gold market due to the immense quantity of money sitting in various types of savings accounts in Japan. By our calculations, 2% of total Japanese savings would be sufficient to purchase all of the gold currently sitting in the coffers of the world's central banks (we are assuming here that after all of their loaning, swapping and selling the central banks have been left with about 20000 tonnes of gold). In other words, a very small shift from savings accounts paying near-zero rates of interest to gold would create a surge in the gold price that central banks would be powerless to stop. The question is, will that shift happen. Gold -- Sharefin, 22:42:07 04/29/02 Mon Women continue with ‘gold rush' CHANDIGARH: Women of the city are not bored with buying gold chains and bangles. Despite the rate of the precious metal soaring to Rs 4,900 for ten grams in the past few days, sales have increased to almost double, which proves that the fascination for the metal has not waned, but on the contrary has increased as the glittering metal becomes dearer. ‘‘Prices of gold have escalated by 20 to 30 per cent (Rs 800 to 900) within the past year after remaining stagnant for several years and this has caused a great deal of excitement in the market,'' says Sunil Talwar of Talwar Jewellers, the oldest jewellery store in the city which was established in 1954. ‘‘People are once again confident that gold is not a dead investment and although prices are rising, they are nonetheless buying more of the precious metal,'' revealed Sunil. ‘‘Gold as an investment is simple to buy and easy to dispose of and once again people's faith in it has been revived by the rising prices,'' he added. An additional reason for city residents going back to investing in gold is also quoted as the cause behind erratic prices of immovable property. With the liberal ‘open general license' in importing gold coming in on April 1 this year, in place of ‘special import license' earlier, the trade of gold is bound to increase, say city jewellers. Gold -- Sharefin, 22:36:43 04/29/02 Mon Markets get physical Gold briefly traded at $312 an ounce on Monday, its highest since February 2000. The crude oil price has rebounded sharply from its end-2001 lows. House prices are booming in the US and the UK. Suddenly, real assets look a lot more exciting to investors than financial assets. "The game in the 1980s and 1990s was disinflation," Mr Hendry says. "Investors took advantage of duration, which meant buying highly priced, fast-growing companies. We saw the cult of the growth stock." But all that has changed, Mr Hendry believes. "The policies of central banks will inevitably result in the end of disinflation and possibly the return of inflation. Duration will be a killer." Gold -- Sharefin, 22:34:20 04/29/02 Mon REDISCOVERING GOLD IN THE 21ST CENTURY Gold - Trust the Scots to brag - $320 Gold -- Sharefin, 22:32:13 04/29/02 Mon Footsie steadied by new gold rush MINING stocks were in demand yesterday as the price of gold continued its recent run and surged to a two-year high. Renewed tension over Israeli action in the West Bank and a weak US dollar saw investors switch into the precious metal as a safe haven, and it nudged US$320 an ounce. "The key thing is there are still concerns about the durability of the economic recovery," said John Hatherly, head of global analysis at M&G Asset Management. "We've got to see evidence that the economy really is recovering and that this is translated into improving profitability from companies," Hatherly added. "As yet, we can't really say that's happening, and when it doesn't happen people start to fret." Gold -- Sharefin, 22:30:14 04/29/02 Mon FTSE Gold Mines index Goldbugs rejoice! The yellow metal hit a two-year high in European trading on Monday, touching $312/ounce before closing at $309.65, up 12 per cent since the start of the year. Over the same period, the FTSE Gold Mines index has risen a staggering 55 per cent. And this on top of substantial gains in 2001. Gold's supporters claim it is recovering its old position as a mainstream asset. They attribute the latest rise to fears about the Middle East, the dollar, oil and inflation. However, this analysis is confused and self-contradictory. It is hard to imagine a recovery that is profitless and inflationary. Anyway, the gold market is too illiquid and inaccessible to be of much use to mainstream investors. There is a more mundane explanation. Since 2001, gold miners have reduced their hedging positions. This trend gained force with Newmont's recent acquisition of Normandy. The reduction of forward sales put upward pressure on prices, reinforced by speculative funds taking long positions of their own. Can this continue? Not much longer. There is a natural cap, as rising prices tempt renewed hedging and central bank sales. Some argue that the spot price should follow mining shares still higher. But mining stocks are geared plays on gold; and much of their gain relates to weakness in the rand and Australian dollar, which makes mines in those countries more profitable whatever the gold price. With gold funds holding net long positions of 4m ounces, a retreat could be messy. FTSE Gold Mines Charts Gold -- Sharefin, 20:02:03 04/29/02 Mon Gold Back In Bull Mkt, Factors Point To Further Upside The bulls have returned to gold, with spot prices looking to make gains towards key resistance at $325 a troy ounce following the market's positive move higher last week. A variety of factors finally combined to propel the market higher at the end of last week, market observers said, with discretionary fund players seen to be major buyers currently, with significant long positions built. Analysts estimated that changes in open interest since April 23 indicate that this long position has increased by at least 0.8 million ounces, which would take the combined position to about 9.5 million ounces. "If this is true, then the net long position has now exceeded the level seen in October 1999, of 9.32 million ounces," one analyst said, adding that this is second only to the peak seen in February 1996, of 11.96 million ounces, when gold was trading above $412/oz. Reductions in hedge-books have also played a role in boosting gold prices, with South African gold producer, Durban Roodepoort Deep, announcing last week it had spent $5.6 million and delivered 175,000 ounces to reduce its hedge book to 390,000 ounces as of the end of March. The company said it is intending to close this by the end of June by delivering 260,000 ounces and spending 550 million Rand. There have been continuing reports of gold producers repurchasing their previously sold forward positions, analysts pointed out. Pressure is expected to mount on gold producers to be major buyers of gold as spot prices continue to rally higher, market players said. Gold -- Sharefin, 19:58:18 04/29/02 Mon Overheated COMEX gold stalls but rally seen intact Contrarian Chronicles -- Sharefin, 19:12:57 04/29/02 Mon Opportunity Fort Knox Why do I hold the metals? In a nutshell, I believe what will be the driving force behind gold and silver investment demand will be a generalized lack of confidence in financial assets and currencies, which is going on in Japan right now. One can quickly see that if a tiny amount of the world's financial market assets flowed into the metals market, you could have an explosive rise. I'm not saying it will happen, but this is a risk/reward opportunity that I like. In any case, for people who do not already own the metals, the problem of how to get in is a little tricky. Do you buy them right now, or do you wait for a pullback? I quite frankly don't know. Since I am long, this is not a decision I have to make, and most readers have had a chance to get long over some time. If I happen to spot what I think is a great opportunity, I'll certainly pass it along. However, in general, I don't intend to get more specific in the future than I have been in the past, especially regarding specific stocks. Generically, I would not own any stocks, and I do not own any stocks except those related to precious metals. But I have radically cut back my short positions, because the market has been down so many days in a row and we are heading into the no-news period where fantasies often fly fast and furious. So for the moment, I have virtually eliminated my short positions. If we get a big rally, I will begin getting short again. If the market continues to cascade, depending on how it plays out, I will deal with that as it develops. Obviously, when I'm short something, this is stated in the disclosure section of the column, but those positions can and do change pretty rapidly. Away from stocks, I like fixed income, but only in the three-to-five-year area, which I think is fine for people who need income. I don't want to own anything longer because I'm concerned about the dollar, as I've stated on many occasions. I am long the euro. I am also long gold and silver stocks, the former via some Franco-Nevada warrants that convert into Newmont Mining shares (so basically, I'm long Newmont stock). As for silver, I am long Pan American Silver, of which I am a company director. So, there's a recap of my positions. SDRer -- kitkat, 12:17:10 04/29/02 Mon My thoughts and ondolences to family and friends. (Sharefin, that image was a very special tribute.) Gold -- Sharefin, 07:42:19 04/29/02 Mon Hedging - curse or blessing? - pdf file Gold -- Sharefin, 07:39:31 04/29/02 Mon The PGM gold rush - pdf file Gold lease rates again tested historic lows. The one-month traded at 0; prompting most commercial banks to warn that they had no reason to take this gold. The configuration that we have feared for the past few months has now materialised. Producers are no longer hedging, or are doing so very little, and more on purely optional structures. Funds have long positions close to their maximum limits, central banks are still lending (or rolling over) their stocks, and commercial banks' books are close to their limits. Basically, the lending market is collapsing under available gold. The next step will probably see central banks once again extend the duration of their loans in the hope of achieving some sense of a return. If producers stick to their current strategy of cutting back their hedging portfolios, the entire long end of the curve will sag. The contango will then merely reflect the dollar rate. If dollar rates rise as is currently anticipated, the incentive for producers to resume forward selling could re-emerge, particularly if the spot remains above USD 300/oz. Unless the central banks grow weary of seeing such insignificant returns and make more drastic decisions. Gold -- Sharefin, 07:36:39 04/29/02 Mon Harmony Gold 3Q -2: Earnings Up On Weak Rand, Output Rise Gold -- Sharefin, 07:35:33 04/29/02 Mon ICICI plans a foray in bullion market Charts Online -- Sharefin, 19:35:36 04/28/02 Sun Gold P&F charts - very bullish Gold Sentiment GGSSI Index AG/AU/PL Sentiment Index - ready to breakout & surge Global Gold Indices FTSE Goldmines Indices Global Gold Currencies XAU Hybrids Gold -- Sharefin, 19:34:17 04/28/02 Sun Time to melt the golden calf? What's driving the gold price? There's a guy in bar near Miningweb's offices who probably has as good an explanation as the myriad of fund managers, analysts, market commentators and self-appointed experts who get paid for waving a wand at a price chart. The trouble with the gold market is that 95 percent of its activity is unofficial. With no sure way to monitor all gold trades, it's difficult to know, particularly on a day-to-day basis, how the metal will behave. Most sensible market commentators deal in broadstrokes and with generous reference to the best science available - hindsight. What do we know from hindsight? Broadly speaking, gold's recovery is not as sudden as some would have it. In fact, the seeds were sown in 1999 when key central banks agreed to place a moratorium on official gold sales above a certain level. Since then the political temper of the world has changed; a trend characterised most patently by the terrorist attacks on New York last year. Middle Eastern insecurity, the bursting of the tech bubble in the US as well as the lowering of interest rates, and the apparent distress of Japan's banking system are also changing the way professional and so-called retail investors view wealth. In times of change, wealth is best seen as an obdurate physical item; something you can hold on to during a storm. In short, sentiment is creating a broad-based appetite for gold; or at least a willingness to hear gold's story. If undiscerning, broad-based sentiment is creating a platform for gold, individuals are taking action. Traders don't fancy gold derivatives as much as they used to because interest rates don't provide the returns they used to. The chief executives of gold producers are unwinding gold derivative mechanisms, locked in in the first place because they feared spot gold was under pressure. Above and beyond this, there's a general improvement in demand for physical gold largely owing to the belated work of organisations such as the World Gold Council which has done much to promote the metal as a desirable jewellery item. Now for the bad news. For the investor in Johannesburg's equity market, betting on gold stocks has got to be a hazardous business. The gold index is now higher than it has ever been and the general consensus among South Africa's sell-side analysts is that most counters are over-valued. For starters, gold stock prices are factoring in a spot gold price $20 to $30 per ounce in excess of the current level. If gold was over-sold two years ago when it hit the $255 per ounce nadir, it is certainly under-bought in today's market. And yet, and yet. There's always a chance gold could take off notwithstanding breezing to $308/oz, its highest level in 26 months. If Japanese investors transfer a mere 0.1 percent of their $11 trillion in personal savings to gold, an additional 200 tonnes of demand will be drummed up. Against gold's traditional cache of leverage, and assuming you're still interested in adding or holding gold stocks, choose the counters with the quality assets. In a market carried away by hysteria, as well as being susceptible to widescale disinformation, fundamental valuation must be the key to prudent investment decision-making. Gold -- Sharefin, 19:27:52 04/28/02 Sun Gold price continues to rise "We cannot control the prices in the domestic market as it is linked with the international rates and fluctuations in rupee-dollar parity," bullion dealers said, adding that so far rise in global prices have been playing havoc in the domestic market and exchange parity has been stable. Prices of gold in the domestic market will remain under pressure as long as the Middle East tension prevails, they added. Obaidullah said that the gold market had been facing a laggard period since the last one month owing to thin presence of buyers. It could not be known immediately whether the three main players in the domestic market has suspended gold imports. These key players usually halt yellow metal imports when the international markets touch phenomenal peaks. Gold -- Sharefin, 19:26:22 04/28/02 Sun Gold shares to shine as price tops $US310 Australian gold stocks are set to again shine this week in response to the continuing bull run in world gold prices. Gold bugs have also drawn comfort from last week's comments on the outlook for gold from the respected and normally bearish gold watcher, Gold Fields Mineral Services. In its 2002 gold survey, GFMS said that after more than a decade in the doldrums, gold could be heading for a "new era", marked by a forecast trading range for the year of $US285 to $US315 an ounce. Gold -- Sharefin, 19:24:42 04/28/02 Sun Gold Fields Overtakes AngloGold As Numero Uno Gold Producer in South Africa Gold -- Sharefin, 19:09:09 04/28/02 Sun Safe-haven COMEX gold steamrolls to new high Gold futures muscled to fresh 17-month highs in New York Friday, and bullion reached its priciest in more than two years as capital gravitated toward an asset seen likely to hold value amid uncertainty about the Middle East and the economic recovery. Dealers said speculators and money managers were diversifying into gold as insurance against a weakening dollar, jittery stock markets and a rise in oil prices on the back of worries that the open warfare between Israelis and Palestinians could ignite a regional conflict and line up America's Arab allies against its war on terror. But the real sea change, they said, is the absence of accelerated supply coming from producers, who have scaled back or reversed their hedges because low U.S. interest rates almost eliminated gold's forward premium, the so-called contango earned by selling forward. Gold -- Sharefin, 18:54:02 04/28/02 Sun Weak dollar lifts gold prices "What is of real significance is the increasingly higher price levels at which physical demand is coming through," he said. "Manufacturers who need gold for their business only make purchasing decisions based on whether they think gold will be cheaper today than tomorrow. When we were in a downtrend, many buyers expected to be able to buy gold at lower levels later on, and so scaled down their buying. "Now, we are seeing orders being moved up from Dollars 295 to Dollars 300, which says that they believe prices are going to keep going up. They believe it's cheaper to buy now than later." Gold -- Sharefin, 18:52:40 04/28/02 Sun For a second day, gold stocks glimmer "The fundamentals are in place for a broad gold rally" and could reach as high as $350 an ounce this year, said John Doody, editor of The Gold Stock Analyst. Lenny's Daily Commentary -- Sharefin, 18:50:19 04/28/02 Sun Lenny's Daily Commentary I once read that the average global "hedge book" of the gold producers is "under water" with gold prices at $312 per ounce. If that is so, then we can expect pressure to mount on the gold producers to be major buyers of gold as gold continues higher. While many traders and analysts have believed that the USD was overvalued for the past several years, it now appears likely that the "greenback" may very well have started a significant decline in value, giving the gold market the needed physical demand necessary for a bull market. To quote Michael Rosenberg of Deutsche Bank, "The fact is that the US interest rates are among the lowest in the world, the equity market is the worst performing in the world, the trade deficit is widening and the dollar is grossly overvalued." Mr. Paul Walker, of Gold Fields Mineral Services, was quoted as saying, "I'm bearish about the Japanese banking sector. It would only have to move a fractions of its assets into gold to produce a marked effect (on the gold price)." Japanese demand remains one of the most logical bullish drivers to accelerate the current bull market in gold, now being driven by many other fundamental and technical considerations. Japanese gold demand is very strong, and these numbers bear a watchful eye. Gold -- Sharefin, 18:45:47 04/28/02 Sun Investors applaud gold hedge cutting ‘Hedge cutting' has been hailed as good husbandry and has helped sparked the gold price close to its highest level in more than two years and led to a surge in gold equity stocks. Hedging fell for a second consecutive year in 2001, generating a significant 147 tons of physical demand, with the fall mainly in the fourth quarter of last year, GFMS said in their annual survey of the industry. Gold -- Sharefin, 18:43:38 04/28/02 Sun Everyman's Bull Market (Gold) In a world in which all risks have become systemic, and in which the effect of toxic shocks such as Japan and Argentina are cumulative, gold is one of the very few assets one can own that is wholly unencumbered by debt, political baggage, or undue risk. Gold -- Sharefin, 18:38:44 04/28/02 Sun Investment Capital Under Siege Historically, even in the modern age, gold has shined brightly in both times of great uncertainty and eras of negative real returns on debt investments. are gold shorts really trapped? -- shell, 18:36:35 04/28/02 Sun you dont easily 'trap' a 500lb. gorilla--remember the Hunts cornered the silver market--only trouble was that the shorts they trapped ran the exchange AND they changed the rules rather than let themselves be ruined-the Hunts were ruined instead--so issue is WHO are the trapped gold shorts in 2002 and how high does their influence reach?--and at what point of pain will they exercise it?-- anyone disagree? Nasdaq -- Sharefin, 18:36:08 04/28/02 Sun Lessons from the NASDAQ Bust SDRer -- Prometheus, 17:34:20 04/28/02 Sun She will be missed. A fine analyst and teacher. She had the rare talent of transformin the murky depths of international banking into clear waters that we could navigate mentally. Bye, dear. Hope to meet you on the other side.  Mes Hommages à SDR'er -- Giovanni Dioro, 10:37:19 04/28/02 Sun My respects to SDR'er whom I remember well at Kitco of better times and posters. SDR'er was one of the better posters and was on to something in her pursuit of valuing currencies. She is missed. sharefin Nice -- SilverDragon, 06:32:07 04/28/02 Sun As always, very nice job sharefin. what a beautiful dedication sharefin -- 4bear, 02:25:52 04/28/02 Sun SDRer, your time devoted to honouring the great unanswered world financial questions is a microcosm of your life, and those who you communicated with have been honoured to be your associates. we shall meet again in a place where names have no meaning but emotional feelings prevail, you have been summoned to a higher duty. How dearly missed you will be. Hugh A GOLDEN HEART -- Sharefin, 01:20:51 04/28/02 Sun In loving memory of a dear friend passing. Dianne - 'SDRer' - may you rest in peace....  Long may your light shine..... Gold -- Sharefin, 00:11:47 04/28/02 Sun Inflation Breakdown Nears JP Morgan -- Sharefin, 05:35:17 04/27/02 Sat Quarterly Derivatives Report Of note is the Precious Metals derivatives exposure of JP Morgan. In the last quarter of 2001 their notional exposure climbed from approx 30 billion up to just under 42 billion. During this period they have stopped reporting the exposure of Morgan Guarantee so presumedly they are pooling the gold derivatives under one house. JP Morgan now controls approx 63% (up from 33% a year earlier) of all notional derivatives on gold. (Now some 41.7 billion out of a total pool of 66 billion - a year earlier they controlled 30.2 billion out of a total pool of 90 billion.) Financial Sense -- Sharefin, 05:17:00 04/27/02 Sat Rogue Waves & Standard Deviations Charts -- Sharefin, 04:42:53 04/27/02 Sat Weekly Money Flows Ron Paul -- Sharefin, 03:34:47 04/27/02 Sat Congressman Tells The Truth! I also want to abolish the Federal Reserve, and send Alan Greenspan out to get a job. The value of our dollar and the level of our interest rates are not supposed to be manipulated by a few members of the power elite meeting secretly in a marble palace. The Federal Reserve is unconstitutional, pure and simple. The only Constitutional money is gold and silver, not notes redeemable in them. Not fed funny money. Without the Federal Reserve, our money could not be inflated at the behest of big government or big banks. Your income and savings would not lose their value. Just as important, we wouldn't have this endless string of booms and busts, recessions and depressions, with each bust getting worse. They aren't natural to the free market; they're caused by the schemers at the Fed. President Andrew Jackson called the 19th-century Fed "The Monster" because it was a vehicle for inflation and all sorts of special-interest corruption. Gold -- Sharefin, 01:06:46 04/27/02 Sat Don't laugh -- take a shine to gold In my judgment, the future performance of the entire gold sector will depend on whether the price of gold bullion makes another decisive move up. Increasingly, I suspect that it will. And not for the usual reasons. The traditional gold bugs always based their wild forecasts on the pending end of the world as we know and love it. Included in almost all of the forecasts by these false prophets were runaway inflation and a collapse of the dollar, which would then trigger global currency chaos and lead, inexorably, to our return to a 19th century type of gold standard. That simply ain't going to happen. As the list of countries and regions under stress grows, so will the interest in the ultimate financial hedge. Under such circumstances, $350 gold no longer seems just the impossible dream of gold bugs alone. Gold -- Sharefin, 20:18:29 04/26/02 Fri COMEX gold steamrolls to new safe-haven highs Dealers said speculators and money managers were diversifying into gold as insurance against a weakening dollar, jittery stock markets and a rise in oil prices on the back of worries that the open warfare between Israelis and Palestinians could ignite a regional conflict and line up America's Arab allies against its war on terror. But the real sea change, they said, is the absence of accelerated supply coming from producers, who have scaled back or reversed their hedges because low U.S. interest rates almost eliminated the forward premium earned by selling forward. "It's still being driven by investor buying. And who knows, there might be some producer buying behind it," said the head of a precious metals trading firm. The move resumed after options rolled off and the contract vaulted $310, a psychological level above which players had placed buy orders betting yet higher prices would soon follow. Ron Paul -- Sharefin, 20:03:26 04/26/02 Fri Ron Paul Predictions Federal Reserve policy will continue at an expanding rate, with massive credit expansion, which will make the dollar crisis worse. Gold will be seen as an alternative to paper money as it returns to its historic role as money. Upcoming Commodity Boom! -- Giovanni Dioro, 13:20:44 04/26/02 Fri Here's part of what Harry said about a possible upcoming commodity boom including the bit about the dollar being allowed to fall: Here's what I see unfolding in the financial world for both the immediate & long term. The commodity & metals market is the future for you & me because we're informed. It has the biggest potential & the smallest risk. It already is in part & increasingly will be the best place to be for investments. This includes everything from coffee, sugar, gold, to silver, oil & soy. The reasons are many: inflation is back, slowly, despite govt's distortions & revisions & goalpost moving. There will also continue to be deflation in some sectors of world economies, due to intense competition (& now tariffs), but inflation will have the upper hand. And, there's an unspoken accord in Washington DC to let the US$ drift lower. Also, the charts, which after all tell everything, show base patterns for many commodities. Gold is already ina 16 month-old bull market, with its 2nd phase soon to start. Dollar being guided lower -- Giovanni Dioro, 13:13:44 04/26/02 Fri I forgot to mention it, but in the last HSL of april 15, Harry says there was a tacit agreement in Washington to let the dollar slide a bit. I suppose that is due to pressure from exporters and the reality of america's titanic trade deficit. I read that somebody said why the euro should be stronger than the dollar. 2 reasons: 1) euroland has a trade surplus whereas the US has a cumulative trade deficit of around 2 Trillion dollars over the past 6 years (that builds up pressure for an eventual dollar fall). 2) Euro currencies have fallen roughly 35% against the dollar while euroland has had economic data (notably the trade deficit). Therefore, even though the euro is a flawed currency and doesn't hold a candle to honest money like gold or silver, it will likely outperform the dollar in the years to come. It looks like today we got that 2-day close over 305 that Harry was looking for. He said to buy BIG if that happened. coppock curves -- shell, 21:57:41 04/25/02 Thu can anyone make a chart of a daily gold fund [inivx or userx] with a Coppock curve back to 1976? i only have data back to 1986 on metastock---god, it identified the beginings and tops of bulls beautifully-- at oscillator levels tops and extent of coppock move up for tops and lows with a divergence--i want to see if worked on 1980 and 1982 bull--might be great help to us in our next great problem--when to sell! Gold -- Sharefin, 21:31:30 04/25/02 Thu Gold Fields mkt cap eclipses AngloGold South Africa's second biggest gold miner in output terms, Gold Fields, leapfrogged its larger rival AngloGold as the country's top gold share by market value on Thursday, traders said. Gold -- Sharefin, 21:28:44 04/25/02 Thu COMEX gold ends up after setting new safe-haven high COMEX gold on Thursday rallied to a 17-month high, vaulting previous 2002 peaks as the dollar crumbled and investors piled into sanctuaries from Middle East instability. Other safe havens like the Swiss franc and U.S. Treasury bonds also rallied as reports of a threatened Arab backlash against the United States compounded financial market jitters about the near-war between Israel and the Palestinians. Estimated volume was a brisk 45,000 contracts. "It's a busy day indeed. Obviously the Middle East concerns, stock market concerns and a weaker dollar are all having a positive impact for gold," said Ian MacDonald, head of bullion trading at Commerzbank. "We did break the resistance level around $307 today, so it's really setting the stage for gold to move into a higher trading range now," he said. The New York Times reported Thursday that Saudi Arabian Crown Price Abdullah was expected to warn President George Bush at a meeting in Texas on Thursday that continued U.S. support for Israel's military assault on the West Bank could threaten the strategic U.S.- Saudi relationship. The Times also cited talk within the Saudi royal family and Arab capitals of using the so-called "oil weapon" against America, which pushed up crude oil prices and kept the spotlight on gold as a hedge against inflation and worries about the fragile economic recovery. "Oil didn't react too much initially. But it seemed every other market did, so (gold's rally) could have something to do with that," said Donald Eckert, global bullion risk manager at JP Morgan Chase. The trade-weighted dollar index skidded to 115.06 Thursday, a four-month low. The weak U.S. currency makes gold cheaper for overseas investors and jewelry makers and less attractive in local terms for foreign gold mining companies to sell. Also supportive, according to dealers, was Durban Roodepoort Deep, a small South African producer, saying Thursday it would close its hedge book by the end of June to eliminate a drain on its bottom line.  Another Analogy with the 60's and 70's -- Giovanni Dioro, 10:35:37 04/25/02 Thu Here's another analogy between today and the late 60's early 70's. In the 1960's the govt spent like crazy to keep from falling into a depression. There was the Viet Nam War, Johnson's great society welfare program, the Nasa Space program, etc. The govt and Fed were obviously inflating the money supply much more than by what could be redeemed by silver or gold. The first step they took was to demonetize silver, thus paper dollar bills could no longer be cashed out for silver dollars, quarters, etc. In the years that followed the French realised that the US was debasing the currency and exporting inflation to other nations via the Bretton Woods Agreement on currency exchange and with the price of gold fixed at $35 per ounce, the french called america's bluff and demanded gold in exchange for its excess dollars. Unable to honour its obligations, in 1971 the US reneged on its promise to deliver gold in exchange for paper dollars held by foreign central banks. So let's analyse what has happened. In the 1960's to the early 1970's: 1) Paper currency was redeemable for gold or silver on demand. 2) The paper money supply expanded exponentially. 3) The price of gold was fixed at a relatively low level. 4) Demand at those prices increased 5) There was way too much paper and not anywhere near enough gold or silver with which to redeem it. Compare this to the 1990's and early 2000's where: 1) Paper currency can be exchanged for gold or silver 2) The money supply has expanded exponentially. 3) The price of gold is being restrained at relatively low levels by central bank lending & selling 4) Demand keeps increasing 5) Too much paper has been printed and there is not anywhere near enough gold or silver available to be exchanged at these prices if a small percentage of paper currency tries to cash out. Gold -- Sharefin, 10:16:20 04/25/02 Thu No need to keep precious metals buried in the yard Bullion fund holds equal weights in gold, silver, platinum More than two years after it was originally meant to be released, the Millennium Bullionfund has finally received regulatory approval and is available for sale in Ontario. Registration in other provinces is expected at the end of the summer. Managed by Toronto-based Bullion Management Services Inc., the mutual fund trust is invested one third in physical gold, one third in silver bullion and one third in platinum, says president Nick Barisheff. There are no derivatives, futures contracts or options, just the actual physical precious metals, which will be delivered to investors if requested. Up to 5% cash may be held. Goood Morning All,,, Welcome aboard da 'Moon Ship'. -- SilverDragon, 10:01:11 04/25/02 Thu Goood Morning All, from Imperial Beach, California. Hope All had their seat belts fastened this morning. Might be wise to keep em that way from now on. SilverDragon Gold -- Sharefin, 07:30:09 04/25/02 Thu Gold boom remains intact Making money out of gold used to be a no-brainer. It was simply a case of waiting for the metal price to lift its head and then taking a short position using spreads or gold related warrants. Inevitably the surge would prove to be unsustainable and gold would head straight back to whence it came. But in the past year that cash cow has, to a large extent, dried up for bullion bears. Now the momentum is clearly trending upwards with gold managing to hold above $300 level with relative ease. It's also a trend that is likely to continue according to analysts that ply their trade scrutinising charts. A snap poll of some of South Africa's leading technical analysts suggests that a target price of $330 per ounce might not be far off. Gold -- Sharefin, 07:25:03 04/25/02 Thu Gold boom remains intact Making money out of gold used to be a no-brainer. It was simply a case of waiting for the metal price to lift its head and then taking a short position using spreads or gold related warrants. Inevitably the surge would prove to be unsustainable and gold would head straight back to whence it came. But in the past year that cash cow has, to a large extent, dried up for bullion bears. Now the momentum is clearly trending upwards with gold managing to hold above $300 level with relative ease. It's also a trend that is likely to continue according to analysts that ply their trade scrutinising charts. A snap poll of some of South Africa's leading technical analysts suggests that a target price of $330 per ounce might not be far off. Gold -- Sharefin, 07:23:48 04/25/02 Thu Lihir hedging to curtail short-term earnings Australian-listed and Papua New Guinean-based gold miner Lihir Gold [ASX:LHG] may be sitting pretty with great reserves and a long mine life at its Lihir mine, but the financial outlook for the company in the near-term is looking flat at best. With the spot gold price showing signs of resilience above US$300 an ounce, hedgers like Lihir would continue to be discounted on the bourse and have their profit performances curbed. Lihir this week released its March quarter results and one of the glaring concerns for shareholders, apart from the deferment of a maiden dividend, was that the gap between the company's average realised price of gold and the average spot price was narrowing fast. Lihir currently has a total of about 2.5Moz of production hedged including 440,000oz sold forward for delivery in 2003 at a price of just under $320/oz and 448,080oz at just over $310/oz for delivery in 2004. Production in those two years, according to analysts' reports, is expected to be about 650,000oz a year, so hedging coverage is between 70 and 80 percent once put and call options and spot deferreds are factored in. "Lihir has only minimal short term earnings leverage to the gold price," said Melbourne analyst Ian Preston, of JB Were. Gold -- Sharefin, 07:19:04 04/25/02 Thu Avgold in currency double-whammy Avgold [JSE:AVG], the listed gold producing subsidiary of South African mining house Anglovaal Mining [JSE:AIN], enjoyed a thin 2.4 percent increase in average gold sales compared to the 20 percent improvement if could have received had the gold company been unhedged. In contrast, the depreciation of the rand and the improvement in the dollar gold price is likely to improve gross revenue for South Africa's other gold producers by leaps and bounds when the balance report their March quarterly operating and financial figures. Durban Roodepoort Deep reports tomorrow (25 May), but it's Gold Fields and Harmony Gold that will really show the benefits of being unhedged. Gold -- Sharefin, 07:16:49 04/25/02 Thu Europe Precious Metals: Gold Surges As Buy Stops Triggered Spot gold in London broke through the key $305 and $307 a troy ounce resistance levels to move to a near two-and- half year high Thursday morning but further upside progress looks likely to be hampered. A confident break of $305/oz resistance in early trade extended the gradual uptrend that has emerged over the last few days and it was not long before the next level at $307/oz was breached and the high at $308.87/oz tested. Here the buying eased and speculator sellers emerged but upward momentum remains intact. A weaker dollar against the euro and Australian dollar has helped trigger the gains but dealers feel a move through the next resistance level at $310/oz is unlikely to emerge in the absence of bank buying from the U.S. The approach of the Comex April option expiry Friday is also said to be keeping the market from pushing higher given there is a large volume of interest at the $305/oz strike price. However, others were confident that further gains are possible. "I have a feeling they will view this positively in New York and won't be shy about adding to their longs," another dealer said. "I think $310/oz is a reasonable target for the afternoon." Longer term, physical buyers have raised their order price above $300/oz and there seems to be "no reason to hold short positions," said Frederic Panizutti, analyst at GoldAvenue in Geneva. He agreed that the short term direction would depend on whether the upward momentum can be maintained from the open of Comex trading. Gold -- Sharefin, 07:14:20 04/25/02 Thu Gold soars to $308/oz on dollar weakness Spot gold raced to its highest level for 26 months in Europe on Thursday after the dollar slid to a year-low against the Swiss franc and slumped also against the euro, yen and sterling. Gold soared through long-standing bands of resistance at $305/308 an ounce to hit $308.25/309.00, the highest since February 2000 when it touched $319. Already buoyed by worries about the Middle East and Japanese banking concerns, gold took flight as the dollar faded on market doubts about U.S. economic recovery, traders said. A cheaper dollar makes dollar-denominated bullion more attractive for European and other non-U.S. investors. "The dollar has been sliding all day and this has simply triggered stop-loss buying all the way up," one trader said. When the dollar is weak, international equity markets brittle and even bonds don't offer complete protection in a volatile world, gold is seen to offer a safe home for investors. Earlier in the session a surge of buying from one large trade house before the morning fix in London spurred gold towards $306, beating an April 3 blip caused by an upsurge in Middle East tension. "A large house bought this morning and the price moved. Of course the same old factors are there -- the Middle East, problems in Japan, weaker dollar," one trader said. Gold -- Sharefin, 05:04:51 04/25/02 Thu Global uncertainty favours gold price WHILE gold prices were well placed to rise this year, due mainly to investors' desire for a shelter from uncertainties ranging from tension in the Middle East to Japan's banking crisis, the market remained "delicately poised", a mining consultancy said yesterday. Gold -- Sharefin, 05:03:25 04/25/02 Thu DRD Profits Slump As Gold Output Falls Gold -- Sharefin, 05:02:10 04/25/02 Thu JFX eyes Antam as market maker for gold trading The Jakarta Futures Exchange (JFX) said it was eyeing state-owned gold mining company PT Aneka Tambang (Antam) to become its market maker for boosting gold trading at the country's flagging futures commodities market. Gold -- Sharefin, 05:00:19 04/25/02 Thu Dubai bids to corner half of world gold trade Dubai, the self-styled "city of gold", launched on Wednesday a metal and commodities centre for trading gold, diamonds and key commodities with an initial goal of securing half of the global gold trade. ARY to establish big gold refinery Dubai-based ARY Group is to set up a 250-tonne-a-year gold refinery at the Dubai Metal and Commodity Centre (DMCC). At the same time, Al Ghurair Giga Gold Refinery has started working on a 100-tonne facility, the first by Al Ghurair family, said Essa Al Ghurair, director of Al Ghurair Giga Gold Refinery. Meanwhile, Emirates Gold is going to relocate its 50-tonne refinery to the DMCC and expand capacity to 350 tonnes a year. "We refine 50 tonnes of gold a year. We are planning to increase its capacity to one tonne a day which will enable it to refine between 300 to 350 tonnes," said Mohammed Shakarchi, managing director of Emirates Gold. Once all the three refineries are up and running, they will be able to refine between them 700 to 800 tonnes of gold every year, more than a third of the global gold consumption, which is currently estimated at 2,300 tonnes. Gold -- Sharefin, 04:57:38 04/25/02 Thu Hong Kong Gold Exchange plans extension of trading hours The Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange Society in Hong Kong is considering the extension of trading hours, Fung Chi-kin, president of the Exchange said at a press conference late Wednesday. "The exact timeframe to start longer trading hours remains uncertain. We think there's a strong need to lengthen our trading hours in response to increased desire from gold traders trading with other overseas exchanges such as London. The current trading hours are not enough," Fung said. He added that "an electronic trading platform" is being considered to help handle the extra trading time and "details would be looked into later." Gold -- Sharefin, 04:55:27 04/25/02 Thu Gold group 'bearish on Japanese banks' A collapse of Japan's strained banking sector offers one of the strongest chances of a continued rise in gold prices in the second half of this year, according to Gold Fields Mineral Services. "I'm bearish about the Japanese banking sector. It would only have to move a fraction of its assets into gold to produce a marked effect (on the gold price)," said Paul Walker, a director of the London-based precious metals research consultancy. GFMS's annual gold survey predicts that the world price will range between Dollars 285 and Dollars 315 a troy ounce for the rest of 2002.  Gold -- Sharefin, 04:52:14 04/25/02 Thu Gold group 'bearish on Japanese banks' A collapse of Japan's strained banking sector offers one of the strongest chances of a continued rise in gold prices in the second half of this year, according to Gold Fields Mineral Services. "I'm bearish about the Japanese banking sector. It would only have to move a fraction of its assets into gold to produce a marked effect (on the gold price)," said Paul Walker, a director of the London-based precious metals research consultancy. GFMS's annual gold survey predicts that the world price will range between Dollars 285 and Dollars 315 a troy ounce for the rest of 2002. Shell -- Sharefin, 04:38:58 04/25/02 Thu It's ANZAC day here so a holiday for the markets. is oz trading tonite?-- -- shell, 18:49:46 04/24/02 Wed quotes not coming thru yahoo tonite--if open what is rough %change in ncm, sgw, lhg, rgs, rsg?-tia Gold -- Sharefin, 10:42:45 04/24/02 Wed Not the time to hedge gold output Will benefit most if metal stays hot, Bill Belovay says Decidedly bullish on the bullion price, Bill Belovay, vice-president and portfolio manager at Toronto-based Jones Heward Investment Counsel Inc., who specializes in precious metals stocks, is currently choosing gold companies that have not hedged their production forward. "These companies will benefit most if the gold price continues to rise," says Belovay, who joined Jones Heward four years ago. At the firm, he manages the BMO Precious Metals Fund, which focuses on Canadian gold mining companies and has returned almost 40% in the first quarter. A hedging strategy, whereby companies sell production forward at a fixed gold price, is desirable in a climate of falling bullion prices as this puts a limit on the downside, but it is a negative in a rising bullion market, he says. This is the reason why Belovay sold giant Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX/TSE), which recently closed at $28.86 and trades in a 52-week range of $31.20 to $21.95. "With the gold price pushing above US$300 per ounce, Barrick's hedging strategy is perceived by analysts to be a liability rather than an asset," he says. Manias -- Sharefin, 10:32:29 04/24/02 Wed Ingredients for Mania Gold -- Sharefin, 10:25:09 04/24/02 Wed ANOTHER STEP TOWARD $1,252 GOLD  Another step is now being taken by Gold toward the new bull market. In the graph above is one of the most powerful technical pictures that can be found. In the days when investors did real technical work, they would pour over chart books hoping to find such a pattern. After the bear trend exhausts itself, price often goes into a lateral pattern. During this lateral pattern the weak holders, like the Bank of England, are eliminated. At the conclusion of the pattern the asset is held by strong hands, and the sellers are being exhausted. What we have been waiting for is the break out of that lateral pattern. That development is in process and the implications are extremely bullish. The resolution of this pattern with bullish implications does not prevent another test of the lower edge of the lateral pattern but does indicate that the upside is the direction in which ultimate resolution will occur. Also, the length of the lateral pattern suggests something about the upside target for Gold. Based on the this pattern a move to US$450-500 is definitely in the works. Gold -- Sharefin, 09:32:22 04/24/02 Wed HIV/Aids hikes gold production costs The world's largest gold producer AngloGold estimated on Wednesday that HIV/AIDS was raising its production costs in South Africa, where about a quarter of its workers were HIV positive, by four to six dollars an ounce. Gold -- Sharefin, 09:31:22 04/24/02 Wed J.P. Morgan Technical Outlook Spot gold, having failed at the previous high at $307 a troy ounce, should drift back toward $301/oz once more and any fall through here would trigger a move down to $296/oz support, J.P. Morgan said. Silver's rally looks set to stall at $4.60-$4.64/oz after which prices will retrace back toward $4.40/oz and possibly $4.24/oz before rallying back up toward $4.60-$4.74/oz, they said. Platinum is becoming overbought and the uptrend in running out of steam but further marginal strength may emerge. Longs are advised to sell on strength with a break of $540/oz likely to lead to a move down to $510/oz. Gold -- Sharefin, 09:29:45 04/24/02 Wed GFMS: Gold Hedging Down By 147 MT in '01 Vs By 15 MT In '00 -- Trend In Declining Hedge Books Likely To Continue -- Fall In Hedging Meant Overall Supply From Producers Fell 4% In 2001 -- Low Interest Rates, Better Outlook For Gold Price Main Reasons Behind Fall The global gold producer hedge book contracted by a net 147 metric tons during 2001 against a 15 ton fall in 2000, and marked the second consecutive annual decline in outstanding hedge positions, according to the latest Gold Survey 2002 conducted by London- based analysts Gold Fields Mineral Services. The decline in net hedging created demand in the physical market and meant the overall contribution of producers to the supply side actually fell last year by 112 tons or 4%, despite a small increase in mine production, GFMS said. This was one of the main findings of Gold Survey 2002, the annual report on developments in the international gold market released Wednesday by GFMS. The survey calls the decline "one of the most remarkable features of the market" during 2001 and suggests that this was one of the factors that provided support to the gold price, particularly during the last months of the year. The main reason identified for the decline was conditions within the gold market which were not conducive to hedging. Falling interest rates eroded the contango to the point where almost no premium could be gained from selling gold forward in the short to medium term. In addition, perceptions about the outlook for the price improved considerably as the year progressed, and with it, producers' desire to be fully exposed to any potential price upside. Miners therefore saw little reason to protect themselves against falling prices as well as less opportunity to enhance their revenue by locking in the contango. This was particularly true in the last months of the year, GFMS said. "All indications are that the trend to lower hedging has continued into the first months of this year, and while short term interest rates remain low and price prospects remain positive, we would expect to see another significant fall in the global hedge book in coming months," the survey quoted Hester Le Roux, a director at GFMS, as saying. "Further impetus to this trend is provided by the fact that, in the current price environment, unhedged producers seem to be finding more favor among investors," Le Roux said, although she pointed out that the distinction between 'hedged' and 'unhedged' producers is somewhat blurred, and now seems to be seem to be drawn "more along philosophical than factual lines." High levels of merger and takeover activity will continue to influence producer behavior, according to Le Roux, as "reluctant new owners of hedged ounces are expected to use every opportunity to trim inherited books, or to close them out altogether." Gold -- Sharefin, 09:27:12 04/24/02 Wed GFMS see gold price at $285/315 during rest of 2002 Metals consultant Gold Field Minerals Services (GFMS) said on Wednesday it expected the world gold price to range between $285.00 and $315.00 a troy ounce through the remainder of 2002. "The gold price has established a price floor from which it can move higher," GFMS director Hester le Roux said during a presentation of the GFMS Gold Survey 2002. Gold was quoted at $304.30/304.80 at 1313 GMT. GFMS estimated official gold sales by Europe's central banks would range between 406 and 426 tonnes this year, versus 422 tonnes in 2001. GFMS also said it expected global mine output to increase by 0.7 percent, or 18 tonnes, this year. In 2001 mine production was 2,604 tonnes. The gold industry had widely expected production to fall this year because of declining outout at mature mines in the world's biggest producers, South Africa, Australia, and the United States. Gold -- Sharefin, 09:26:01 04/24/02 Wed NY gold pops higher after econ data, buyers in wings "As soon as the number came out we had buying in the gold market," said one floor broker. "We had selling in the copper market and buying in the gold market for who knows what reason. I think it had more to do with the revision of last month." "There are huge buys stops building up above $307/307.50 which would represent a break out from our last 30-40 day consolidation area," said a desk broker. But sources said they did not know who was left to keep buying, with funds long 32,000 contracts last week and believed to have gotten even more overbought in recent days. "I'm also hearing there are big sellers waiting for it. All the dealers are sellers up there," the floor broker said. "I'm hearing big buys stops, but I haven't seen a buy stop in two weeks."  Harry Schultz - Demand Honest Money! -- Giovanni Dioro, 09:23:45 04/24/02 Wed Demand Fair Play! What isn't understood by the public, yet affects every bit of food they eat, is that the fiat monetary system now in vogue robs them of the chance to provide for the years when they are too old or sick to work! Under the gold standard or even the gold exchange standard, people could save money in banks & know that on retirement or illness, that money would buy the same amount of food & goods as the day they put it in the bank. That was true for 100 years of the pure gold standard (to the penny!) & largely true under the gold exchange standard. But elite insidedrs contrived to change the system to benefit themselves at the expense of the public. In earlier US history, the Democratic party understood this & were strong advocates of gold/silver currency. The Republicans represented the minority (bankers, insiders & big biz). Since then, Democrats were infiltrated by insiders, & converted to anti hard-money policy. So, ironically, it's the little man who should be demanding a gold standard, as he did under the Democrats in earlier years. Actually, everyone should. Elite insiders represent less than 1% of the population, yet influence a majority via employees, subsidies & via the media which they now control entirely. In the present situation people work all their prime years & accumulate a modest nest egg, then retire (or become too ill to work) only to find the egg loses purchasing power every day & in a few years forces some to eat tinned dog food. Even well-off citizens have to reduce living standards drastically as years roll by. Debasement of the currency is a very old trick, advocated by Karl Marx to enslave the masses. There should be big demonstrations, demanding a return to honest money, paper money backed by gold. It is what made the world work fairly for a century, & has increasingly become more unfair with every passing week. (Someone should print this "gigantic message" & have it dropped as gold or green leaflets over major world cities starting with Washington DC / London / Paris / Tokyo / Rome / Buenos Aires / Rio de Janeiro / Mexico City / Los Angeles / Sydney ) (Meanwhile print up 5000 yourself & hand them out, drop in mail boxes hire kids to hand out on the streets. If not now, when?) ====================================== I agree with most everything harry says here above except for one major point which is that Harry doesn't go far enough in advocating a return to "paper money backed by gold". To what we must return is money not simply backed by gold or silver, but redeemable or convertible into gold or silver. Case in point, Argentina's peso was "backed" by gold and look what good that has done to the argentine people. It don't mean a thing unless money is tangible or convertible or redeemable into something tangible. Gold -- Sharefin, 09:23:20 04/24/02 Wed Dubai's New Commodities Center Wants 50% Of Global Gold Market Dubai hopes to grab 50% of global gold business through the creation of the Dubai International Metals and Commodities Centre (DMCC), a trading, refining and storage hub focusing on the gold, diamonds and commodities businesses. The center's first priority is to develop the gold aspect of the business, and expand Dubai's role in the global gold trade, before moving onto DMCC's diamond and commodities aspects. Currently, Dubai holds 10% of global gold market share; 2,300 tons of gold flow through the trade-oriented emirate every year. Joe -- Sharefin, 09:20:02 04/24/02 Wed Please keep your posts to gold orientated news. There's lots of forums on the web for lots of different themes And the theme here is gold news. Thanks Nick Gold -- Sharefin, 03:26:55 04/24/02 Wed Barrick strikes gold in Peru Canada's Barrick Gold Corp. announces 'significant' find in Peru Barrick Gold Corp. says it has made "a significant gold discovery" at its Alto Chicama property in north-central Peru. Estimating 3.5 million ounces of gold, Toronto-based Barrick said Tuesday it will quadruple its 2002 exploration and development program for Alto Chicama to $20 million. Gold -- Sharefin, 02:41:48 04/24/02 Wed Analysts lift gold forecasts but want another rally Political and economic uncertainty and strong market fundamentals had led gold experts to lift their price forecasts for the metal, analysts said yesterday. Gold -- Sharefin, 02:37:50 04/24/02 Wed Gold Fields Rivals AngloGold as S. Africa's Most Valuable Miner Gold Fields Ltd., South Africa's second-largest gold producer, is poised to take over bigger rival AngloGold Ltd. as the most valuable gold company on the Johannesburg stock exchange. Gold Fields is benefiting from a sales strategy designed to exploit rising prices for gold, which has jumped 16 percent in the past year to $305.30 an ounce. AngloGold, in contrast, locked in sales when prices were lower. Gold -- Sharefin, 01:52:00 04/24/02 Wed Good times ahead for unhedged gold miners "This gold price increase will filter straight through to the (unhedged) companies' bottom lines," said David Davis, gold analyst at Standard Equities. Gold -- Sharefin, 01:46:13 04/24/02 Wed Japan's gold demand jumps sixfold JAPAN'S gold demand surged sixfold in March as investors bought the precious metal as a safe haven before the government imposed limits on insuring time deposits in the nation's debt-laden banks. Gold imports jumped to 13.2 tonnes last month, a gain of 569% from March 2001, the ministry of finance said on its website, without giving the amount of gold imported in March last year. The value of gold imported in March surged eightfold to 16.3 billion yen (S$228 million). Gold demand in the world's second-largest economy may rise to 200 tonnes this year, producer-funded World Gold Council said last week. Gold -- Sharefin, 01:22:44 04/24/02 Wed Deep in Debt, in Deep Danger Gold is a precious metal used in jewelry, decorations, and as a plated coating in a wide variety of electrical and mechanical components. Its mining and refining impose considerable costs. People throughout the world cling to it as a store of value. The U.S. dollar, the production of which requires little effort or cost, is a medium of exchange the value of which depends entirely on the belief in its trustworthiness. Just like gold, it is subject to the economic principle of supply and demand, but in contrast to gold, its stock is a many-layered quantity of claims of unknown reliability. It resembles an inverted pyramid with Federal Reserve notes and reserves at its base and many-layered bank credits resting on the base. Commercial banks and non-bank credit institutions lend, securitize their loans, sell them, and lend again in a continuing process of credit expansion. Fearful of the soaring external debt and a looming dollar crisis some investors may prefer to hold gold, the money of the ages. They may not rely on the intention and ability of the European central bankers to maintain the value of the euro nor trust any other fiat currency. They may even be distrustful of the return to economic growth which, in their view, merely amounts to continuous growth of consumer, corporate, and, especially, federal debt. And fearful of fiat inflation which is the favorite way for government to rescind old debt, they may choose to purchase and hold gold in any form. Gold is not only an asset that at any time may be converted into legal tender currency but also an alternative investment. When stock, bond, and commodity markets disappoint, gold may shine above all others. When the economic recovery fails to realize and the debt pyramids begin to crumble, gold may emerge as the most reliable possession. GoldCorp -- auspec, 18:10:36 04/23/02 Tue Not a wise idea to bet against Rob McE. Price of gold in Argentina -- Sharefin, 08:21:03 04/23/02 Tue  From Pacific FX Gold -- Sharefin, 07:56:52 04/23/02 Tue THE ADEN FORECAST - GOLD IS SHINING Gold is again above the psychologically important $300 level. The weaker Dollar is now pushing gold and gold shares up further. Gold is strong above $297 and it would be very strong above $307. The XAU gold share index is near a 2 year high and at a new high for this bull market. This is super bullish action and we continue to recommend the strongest gold shares as they're outperforming all other investments. The U.S. Dollar index is at a new low for this year. The decline since January is gaining momentum and this will continue to give gold a boost. The foreign currencies also look very good. The Euro, Swiss Franc and British Pound are at three month highs and the Australian and New Zealand Dollars look good too. The run has come and these rises should now pick up steam. As for stocks, small and medium cap stocks are the only ones looking good. Otherwise, the stock market is still under pressure and it has been this past month. The market will remain vulnerable to a further decline if the stock indices now stay below the March highs. And if Nasdaq closes below 1720, it'll be a very weak sign. Until next time... Goldcorp -- Sharefin, 07:08:16 04/23/02 Tue Rob McEwen Of Goldcorp Gears Up To Make another Bet On Gold Just over a week ago there was a riot of activity on the dealing floor of RBC Dominion Securities in Toronto. Goldcorp, the company which is one of the world's lowest cost producers from its very high grade gold mine at Red Lake in Canada, had put its hand up for US$90 million in secondary paper. In no time at all it was two and a half times over subscribed and the company had not even bothered to say what it wanted the money for. So often in the past gold has flattered, only to deceive. The spike after the Washington Gold Accord among central banks in 1998 was a classic example, the mini spike after September 11th another. Each time in came the forward sellers and put a damper on things. This time round, however, gold is holding its own around the US$300 mark and the hedgers are backing off. In February Barrick, the gold industry's arch hedger, announced that it would be selling half its production this year at spot. This is the first time in ten years that the company has not made full use of its hedging programme. The following month Auriongold, Australia's biggest independent producer, confirmed that it would begin winding down its hedge book and allow itself greater gearing to the spot gold price. This month Harmony Gold closed the hedge book inherited from its acquisition of Randfontein Estates and Gold Fields halved the forward contracts from Obosso which owns the Damang gold mine in Ghana. It takes two to tango so it is not surprising that Placer Dome decided to hedge up to 40 per cent of production over the next five years and bankers JP Morgan screeched approval from the wings with gold analyst Geoff Breen claiming that better value can be obtained on the forward market. Not if gold continues to advance towards Andy Smith's top target of US$350/oz, it can't. The Japs are still buying in big lumps and as gold comes back into favour investors are starting to ask themselves questions about paper currencies. How long will the world accept US dollars for goods and services? How long can US consumers go on spending money they do not have? When will property markets turn down and end the illusion of additional wealth caused by rising prices? Questions such as these expose the Bundesbank threat to sell gold after 2004 for the self-serving cant that it is. Bankers are not the brightest people, but even they are not likely to sell into a rising market for fear of swift exposure. Japanese Gold -- Sharefin, 07:05:33 04/23/02 Tue A Wealth of Reasons for Gold's Rise When it climbs, inflationary fears are usually the driving force. This time, a variety of other factors are more likely at work "TO THE MOON"? Gold analysts and portfolio managers aren't predicting the metal will skyrocket from here. On Apr. 5, Goldman Sachs raised its long-term forecast for gold to $325 from $300 and upped the target prices and earnings estimates of most of the gold-mining companies it follows. HSBC raised its 2002 gold forecast to $305 and its 2003 estimate to $325 an ounce on Apr. 12 but pointed out that "profit-taking" could occur near-term. Long-term, HSBC's forecast remains at $300 an ounce. Fund managers are more optimistic. "I don't see it going to the moon," says Bill Martin, manager of American Century Global Gold Investors (BGEIX ). "It would be a nice run if it got to $350." Holmes and Crocker both think it could reach $400. The influences on gold prices are numerous -- and hotly debated. Goldman says low interest rates are having the biggest effect right now. While the reasons are a bit technical, they boil down to this: Low rates essentially give gold producers less incentive to hedge, which decreases the supply available for trading because they aren't writing as many futures contracts on upcoming supplies. Japanese Gold -- Sharefin, 07:03:06 04/23/02 Tue Japanese Gold - Yen/Gram - short term Japanese Gold - Yen/oz - long term Gold -- Sharefin, 06:59:22 04/23/02 Tue S. African golds hit new highs The Johannesburg Stock Exchange's gold index broke through the magical 3000 level today (Monday) for the first time since a dramatic one-day spike in August 1998. The breakthrough has defied bearish calls on South African gold equities, with some pundits calling an end to the rally since it hit 2,300 points. The JSE's gold index started the year at 1,800 points and reached 2,500 mid-way through last month. Today's move came despite a strengthening rand and an uninspiring gold price, which did not promise enormous upside during the balance of the week. Johannesburg gold analysts say the gold stocks are running ahead of an uptick in the bullion price, although none would give a view on where the metal was likely to end up. Consensus, however, is that the metal will have a quiet week. One senior broker said, however, gold index's 3000 point level was easily sustainable. Uber-bear Andy Smith, precious metals analyst at Mitsui in London, says according to technical analysis, the metal is likely to test support of $290 to $292 in the near term. "If this holds, (gold could) move onward and upwards to $328," says Smith. While Smith's long term forecast is more bullish than the consensus view on gold - which is around $320/oz - he discounts the hype surrounding Japanese investment in gold as a buffer against the country's flailing economy. Smith says Japanese punters who bought gold over the last three decades have seen the value of their bullion investments dwindle. "Neither imports, nor premiums, nor the skew of local buying towards paper gold supports such hype…but banking crises are not news to Japanese savers. After 2000 tonnes of gold bar purchases in the last 30 years, Mr and Mrs Watanabe sit on a mark to market loss of about $50 billion. Their gold-buying habits are usually good, but reverse indicators. Credulity over the 'Japan gold rush' typifies gold bull markets," says Smith. Similarly, a report in Dow Jones earlier today, said potential long liquidation by Japanese investors was bearish for the gold price. The view is wildly divergent from that of the World Gold Council, which is punting a Japanese collapse as one of the main future drivers behind a resurgent gold price. Gold -- Sharefin, 06:53:58 04/23/02 Tue Gold glisters in jittery world “There is a belief in the market that gold's time has come again. “Duddenly fund managers see gold as undervalued and are now paying attention to it,” said Peter Hillyard, senior manager at ANZ Investment Bank. Gold -- Sharefin, 06:52:36 04/23/02 Tue Gold Funds Soar, but Investors Snore Gold stocks have been bid up so high that many investors who got in early are likely to take profits. "Gold shares have already risen about 70% in the last 12 months," says Prescott Crocker, who manages Evergreen Precious Metals (EKWAX ) fund. To get in now, he says, investors need to really believe that the U.S. dollar is going to weaken and inflation rise. "It's a search-your-soul kind of thing. You have to be convinced." Individual investors have a history of getting into gold funds at just the wrong time. The fact that they aren't pouring into the sector now indicates to U.S. Global's Holmes that the rally in the metal has further to run. But it also may just indicate that most investors have already learned their lesson. From the Far Side -- Sharefin, 04:51:55 04/23/02 Tue Date: Mon Apr 22 2002 23:15 SKI (Update) ID#212282: Copyright © 2002 SKI/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved Gold stocks continued higher today with USERX rising another 6 cents to 4.75. Readers should be aware of the significance that has been placed on any close over 4.71. This was achieved today and most importantly, it was reached with no fanfare, no major news, and no break-out in gold itself. In the past twenty years, USERX has never achieved a price higher than a prior long-term high ( as defined by my indices ) , until today. The primary implication is that a multi-year up-trend is in place with price targets higher than most people can imagine. This will continue to be the case unless and until a 92-96 index sell signal is obtained. The strength of this rise has already broken all of my rules from any prior bull market, including the 1976-1980 period. Gold stocks have never continued to simply rise past Day 70 from the last 35-39 index buy signal and have never continued higher and higher after a 16-20 index contrary sell signal ( which had been given at 3.90 over a month ago ) . The secondary implication of this rise is that long-term interest rates should be rising over the long-term. Every prior major rise in the gold stocks has been followed by dismal drops in the price of long-term bonds. The low in long-term yields was correctly forecast for the Fall of last year and was called in early November. At that time I was expecting a rise in rates for a year or so and then an eventual fall to new lows based upon an eventual drop in the gold stocks ( since the bull market buy signal in gold stocks was XXed Out ) . The indices have portended a disinflationary or deflationary tendency for the past 20 years. Unless today's long-term break-out in USERX is a fake-out, the long-term trend has just changed towards inflation. The indices' next entry point will occur after a major correction in the gold stocks and the issuance of a new 35-39 index buy signal inside the current 92-96 index buy signal. Although I have read all kinds of current wave counts, we are currently on the first 35-39 index buy signal inside of the bull market buy signal. Essentially this is the first wave up in an apparent bull market. In the bull markets of 1976-1980 and 1982-1984 there were at least three such waves. Although these stocks have generally at least doubled in the last year, most of the rise has occurred since last Thanksgiving, with USERX rising from 2.61 to the present 4.75 after having made a bottom in October 2000 at 2.31. Remember that the all-time high is a split-adjusted 105 from twenty years ago! I am not planning to go short around here again. I'll be lucky enough to get a correction sometime soon. All this and gold still has not exceeded my "singing in car" ( most bearish signal ) from the day of the high in February! Gold -- Sharefin, 18:06:45 04/22/02 Mon Precious or precocious? Analysts see continued rally ahead for gold With gold playing hopscotch around $300, some analysts expect more fireworks from the precocious metal. Gold's spot price Monday morning rose $2 to $304.10 an ounce. Gold stock prices, meanwhile, were poised for another leg up in their six-month rally. Gold stocks as measured by the XAU miners' index and the Toronto Stock Exchange's gold-share index rose more than 1.5 percent Monday morning to their highest points since late 1999. Andy Smith at Mitsui Precious Metals in London has a forecast for gold this year at the very high end for professional analysts: $355 an ounce. Smith says "technical analysis suggests gold may test $290 to $292 support in the near term, then, if this holds, move onward and upwards to $328." Gold -- Sharefin, 08:19:32 04/22/02 Mon Gilt funds, gold give highest returns to investors MUMBAI: Gilt funds and gold provided the best return on investments in the previous fiscal. A study by the ET Intelligence Group of how eight major investment categories fared on the returns front shows that mutual funds that put their money into government securities (Gilts) and gold emerged as the most profitable avenues for investment. In the second spot was gold which had been written off at the beginning of the year but managed to bounce back sharply to show an 18.1 per cent return, the highest in a decade. Silver on its part too did not perform too badly either with a return of around 8.1 per cent but selecting either of these avenues meant once again going against the general tide as their performance over the past few years before the last fiscal was nothing to write home about. Gold -- Sharefin, 08:18:06 04/22/02 Mon CFTC Commitments: Gold, Silver Longs Trim Exposure According to Tim Evans, an analyst at Pegasus Econometrics, this decrease in net long exposure alleviates some of the downside pressure on the market as it lessens the amount of sellers potentially overhanging the market. However, he also noted that the market was unlikely to be able to attract fresh buying unless prices break up out of the recent $297-308 area range, but at the same time was unlikely to be able to break higher without any fresh buying. "It's a bit of a dilemma for the gold market at the moment in that the upside looks like it's going to be tough going," he said. Gold itching to go higher -- Sharefin, 07:57:23 04/22/02 Mon GLOBAL GOLD SENTIMENT INDEX  XAU - HYBRID INDICES Gold -- Sharefin, 05:56:56 04/22/02 Mon Swiss SNB Sells 7.8 Tons Of Gold In 10 Days The Swiss National Bank sold around 7.8 metric tons of gold in the 10 days ended April 19, the central bank's regular statistics report showed Monday. The latest sales brought the total sold to around 491.4 tons under the program begun in May 2000. The SNB is aiming to set a total of 1,300 tons of surplus gold under a five-year agreement reached among 15 European central banks. Gold -- Sharefin, 05:42:55 04/22/02 Mon The Gold Share Market Entering a Second Phase Derivatives -- Sharefin, 05:37:25 04/22/02 Mon A Closer Look at Derivatives - Frank Partnoy Big Beaver -- Sharefin, 04:07:27 04/22/02 Mon You don't need to go to that site to see my charts. The same chart is linked in here. Gold Lease Rates Gold & Gata -- Sharefin, 03:03:48 04/22/02 Mon Central bank gold sales are probably just bullion bank bailouts Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Michael Kosares, proprietor of Centennial Precious Metals in Denver and of www.USAGold.com on the Internet, made some typically insightful observations on his site's bulletin board the other day. For starters, Mike explained again how central bank gold sales are probably not adding metal to the market as much as rescuing big bullion banks from otherwise irretrievable short positions. I couldn't help but copy Mike's comments for sharing with you here. They're below. CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. * * * By Michael Kosares www.USAGold.com There is not much gold available in size. If you were the finance minister for Japan (for example) and you wanted to increase your gold reserves, you would have only a few options. 1) Hope that some other central bank is forced to sell and that the gold is "free." By "free" I mean available for the open market. The Bank of England sales were not "free" but channeled sales -- available only to London Bullion Market Association members, at which point control of BOE reserves was delimited to whomever the members chose. As I have said before, I believe the BOE sales were meant to help some bullion bank in trouble with gold loans. The BOE in essence became the lender of last resort, though it tried disingenuously to paint the sales as a prudent change in the bank's asset structure. The same can be said about the Swiss sales, which, as you recall, first went through the Bank for International Settlements, but when things did go as the Swiss had hoped, were altered to go through bullion banks designated by the Swiss central bank. To acquire metal through central bank channels, no matter how many sales are announced in the future, may be a waning hope for any central bank, since most of the big ones need to hold something in reserve should one of their primary banks be pushed to the ropes due to a high failure rate in gold loans. When one puts this thinking to use, it becomes obvious that gold sales by central banks are no longer something to be feared by the marketplace, since nearly all the metal will be channeled to deals already on the books. This metal is unlikely to see the light of day. 2. Attempt to structure a deal direct with mining companies at a fixed cost (or escalating cost within a band in your domestic currency) over any number of years to fulfill the need. This is going to be difficult to get done in the current environment. 3. Attempt to buy from a private holder. Once again this is unlikely, since for major private holders gold is not an investment but a currency holding ("Footsteps of Giants" scenario) not to be touched except in dire emergency. In fact, with this group, the opposite becomes a problem: The private holders will be buyers too as the world's major currencies continue to depreciate recklessly against one another in this beggar-thy-neighbor environment. 4. Attempt to buy in the open market. Essentially this is what Japan is doing now by standing aside as national investors' scramble to acquire yellow metal. By doing this, the Japanese people get some of the advantage of these ridiculously low, bullion bank-sponsored prices, and the metal flows within Japanese borders. (Once again, probably never to see the light of day.) This is stealth economics at its best -- the redemption of paper dollars for gold while no one is thinking about it (as such) -- and without the national government having to make a public issue about it. 5. Force the United States government to begin shipping its hoard of bullion to the Japanese central bank in the same way France forced the United States to ship metal to the continent in the late 1960s -- a strategy that forced the collapse of the London gold pool and the phony $35 benchmark price. Japan may force the issue in the same way now with its citizen purchases. That's why I have tried to bring the proper emphasis to the Japanese situation. When Japanese gold experts say they believe that gold demand in Japan could rise sharply from here, we should pay close attention. This phenomena is beginning to take on the feel of an economic policy. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul's legislation to make U.S. gold dealings more transparent takes on an even more important aspect when thought about in the context just outlined. If the United States has uncommitted reserves (and that in itself is a question straining to be answered), will Japan, Europe, and China (our chief trading partners) make a claim on them? And if so, what will be the U.S. response. At current prices, I don't think that even this would be a threat to the gold market as the current currency situation progresses. The price will have to be raised substantially to keep these countries from collapsing their largest export market. Much to think about. So what does all this mean to the gold investor? It means that you could be easily crowded out of the market and it could happen before most people even understood what had happened. Even now, when things get moving, the supply of gold coins tightens up ... AND IT DOESN'T TAKE MUCH. In 1999 when we had the post-Washington Agreement run-up in the gold price coupled with the Y2K buying spree, the pre-1933 gold coin market was completely bottled up by major investors working through brokers like USAGOLD/Centennial Precious Metals. I expect that to happen again. But believe it or not, I believe that the flow of pre-1933 coins -- because theirs is a smaller, targeted market detached from the bullion banks -- will be better than bullion coins. That will be good for those who buy now, because it will lubricate a two-way market. I don't know how the small dealers will do, but like everyone else they will have trouble keeping metal in stock. Their ability to fulfill orders will be directly related to their long-term business arrangements with primary suppliers -- a problem we don't have at USAGOLD, due to our large volumes. Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 22:39:32 04/21/02 Sun http://home.columbus.rr.com/rossl/gold.htm Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1796.83 + Dow 10,257.11 + 12,053.94 divide by 2 = 6,026.97 Ponzi Up 53.47 from last week. Thanks for the link RossL. Go GATA Go Gold $hifty Gold Ready To Surge (Just read your "how to post a link") -- Big Beaver, 13:05:14 04/21/02 Sun Let me try this snappers geosharesgoldleasechart Gold Ready to Surge -- Big Beaver, 12:51:44 04/21/02 Sun I was hoping the address below in my last post would work as a link. Just copy and paste into the browser location URL and it should take you to a graph of a gold lease rate chart comparison to the price of gold. You may have to register to view the chart which is free and almost instantaneous. Gold about Ready to Surge? -- Big Beaver, 12:44:39 04/21/02 Sun What do you think snappers? I think it is! http://www.geoshares.com/geomatter/BSHApril11.htm Charts Online -- Sharefin, 10:10:09 04/21/02 Sun Charts Online Gold -- Sharefin, 09:52:56 04/21/02 Sun Will gold decline to $250? When it comes to the gold market patience equals profits. This is an area where patience will truly have its rewards. Sustained gold bull markets take time to develop, especially considering the prolonged 20-year bear market that gold emerged from in late 1999. The kind of overhead supply that resulted from this unprecedented decline takes time to overcome, and prices cannot begin to rise in a sustained fashion until supply is largely absorbed. However, the rewards for those who practice patience in the gold market will be immense. Gold prices cannot be expected to take off in a really big way until the public smells fear. Only when fear replaces complacency among the investing public can gold soar to meteoric heights. Gold, more than just being a barometer for inflation and deflation, is the quintessential "fear index." Its price is a reflection of monetary concerns among the masses. It responds well to deflationary equities bear markets not to mention currency devaluations. Gold will comes into its own in 2002. What we've seen so far is just a foretaste of better things to come. Gold -- Sharefin, 09:48:18 04/21/02 Sun March to save Indian gold mine Human rights activists and industrial workers in the southern Indian state of Karnataka have set off on a protest march against the closure of one of India's oldest gold mines - the Kolar Gold Fields. Officials of Bharat Gold Mines Limited, the company that runs the 120-year-old mines, said they were closed down last year after suffering losses close to $90m. They also said there was an "unavailability of gold". At least 800 tons of gold has been extracted from these mines over the past 100 years. Gold -- Sharefin, 09:46:09 04/21/02 Sun Investors rush to mining stocks Much of the improved investor sentiment towards the mining sector was based on an expectation of some form of US and then global economic recovery, driven also by some impressive performances in gold and oil shares, JP Morgan's Moore said. "The market has to have an appetite and the appetite is certainly there," he said. "It's a sign of a healthy industry that it's able to raise capital...the investment fraternity are actually voting with their wallets." Gold -- Sharefin, 09:16:43 04/21/02 Sun Jewellery, gold account for 25pc of Italy's trade with UAE JEWELLERY and gold items account for almost one quarter of Italy's trade with the UAE, making the country the second most important market for this sector, according to Dr Masimo Sessa, Italian Trade Commissioner, Dubai. The value of UAE imports from Italy topped $355 million in 2000 compared to $195 million in 1995, according to Italian Trade Commission figures. Gold -- Sharefin, 09:15:18 04/21/02 Sun When the going gets tough, wary investors turn to gold After a long and deep slump, gold is the stock market's new sensation. In the first quarter, gold stock mutual funds posted a 35.20 percent total return, according to Lipper, the mutual-fund tracker. That compares with virtually no gain in the rest of the market during the January-to-March period. Lipper said the average domestic-stock fund returned 0.35 percent, while taxable-bond funds returned 0.17 percent. Gold's first-quarter performance confirmed a rally that began quietly a year ago. Gold -- Sharefin, 09:10:44 04/21/02 Sun Thompson to gold council PEOPLE Godsell recently championed the council's efforts to make gold more freely available to small-time investors, saying sentiment had shifted away from the commonly-held perception that gold was a poor investment. This "demythologising" meant investors now realised central banks were no longer going to flood the market with gold. Gold -- Sharefin, 09:09:07 04/21/02 Sun tomers Shun Gujarat Gold Bazaar After Riots Last year Indians bought 855.2 metric tonnes of gold -- more than twice the amount of the second-largest market, the United States. Three Indian cities dominate the domestic trade -- Bombay, the ancient Silk Road trading center of Jaipur, and deeply troubled Ahmedabad, a city of 4.5 million people. Indians' passion for gold -- for jewelry worn lavishly by both men and women, and as a favorite way to squirrel away wealth -- usually keeps the note counter whirring away at Johnson Jewellers, the largest of the city's 25 gold dealers. But since the violence erupted six weeks ago sales have slumped by half. Gold -- Sharefin, 09:03:40 04/21/02 Sun Jake Bernstein - Gold: the Key is Upside Follow-Through The long term trend in gold is bullish. The short term trend in gold is bullish. The intermediate term trend in gold is bullish. But the ideal seasonal trend is bearish. The outlook is simple. Gold must decisively close above the $US 310-314 area on expanding volume. Gold mining shares must also show an expansion in trading volume if the current rallies are to remain intact. Until and unless this occurs the market will be vulnerable to declines which, should they occur, will represent buying opportunities. While the long term prospects for gold (and all precious metals) remain positive, the short term trends are doubtful and warrant caution. Gold -- Sharefin, 08:47:59 04/21/02 Sun Gold on its way to the moon The problem, however, is that all that gold which has been borrowed from vaults has been made into jewelry and such and is owned by millions of individuals. If the lenders of the gold, the central banks, want it back, the bullion dealers and mining companies aren't going to be in a position to deliver. What appears to be developing, in other words, is a classic short squeeze, but one of gigantic proportions. 2 day close over 305, june futures - @shell -- Giovanni Dioro, 06:59:50 04/21/02 Sun Shell, yes he does mean june futures and not spot. I wonder if he really has the scoop on this. If it is the case they'll fight tooth and nail to keep it under 305, otherwise we could get some more gold mines go bust like Ashanti (?) did a few years ago when a spiking gold price gave them huge losses on their hedges, and rise in value of their gold in the ground wouldn't cover their near term losses. June Futures chart Gold & The UK Gold Sales -- Sharefin, 00:31:59 04/21/02 Sun England's Gold Sales - audio file This transcript is a good listen and provides much mirth..... giovanni -- shell, 21:15:26 04/20/02 Sat i get schultz's gcrs service--i assume he means 305 june, not spot-is that how you read it also? Harry Schultz on Gold -- Giovanni Dioro, 07:16:29 04/20/02 Sat (April 15, 2002) To properly understand the gold mkt today it's essential (not just desirable) to understand the key role of derivative hedging that plagues the industry. Knowledge in this case spells the difference (for you & for mines) between losing money even in a gold bull mkt & making a fortune. There's a mistaken belief that hedges are just a nuisance thing that will keep heging mines (like Barrick & Placer) from making as much profit as they would without them as price rises. Oh, that it was true! In fact, some hedges will strangle most mines & some will bankrupt. $305 is the price that would trigger "Risk Control software" to call for cover on short hedges of the last 5 years. At $354, the cover would have to be one oz long for every one oz short to avoid potentially critical (i.e. fatal) risk. Both $305 & $354 are numbers corresponding to the general risk control software used by the gold banks. They are not just numbers we like on a chart. That means 2 consecutive days close over $305 will trigger huge (forced) buying by the hedgers. There's no way the entire short cover could be made by $354 regardless of what the software calls for. This is accurate information. If yen drops under 75 basis futures, it's a major plus for gold. A major 16-year Head & Shoulders top formation would die there. The Howe lawsuit dismissal was negative to the cause in that it puts the govt perpetrator outside/above the law permanently. That's very bad. But their "alleged" price fixing is now publically seen in a new, negative light by innuendo of the judge's comments. So it's a trade off. Gold & silver shares are creeping into the NYSE big % gainers lists. Sign of popularity to come Watch for them to appear on the volume leaders next. That will be time to take partial profits & rebuy on the correction that will follow. Buy when they don't; sell when thy don't. Schultz Golden Rules upcoming soon. Among the many things going for gold is weakening confidence in the global financial system. Also: the collapse of IBM & GE charts. TV airheads are having hard time avoiding the fact (they try!) that gold shares led all stock groups in 2001 & haven't cooled off since, infact, have escalated. Mutual funds who invest in precious metals claimed 8 of 10 top spots for best performance in 3 months ending March, says Lipper. Japanese are still buying gold bars heavily, having given up on fixed income paper & even savings accounts. I'm not Japanese, but I bought some too. (smiley face) AngloGold, a major hedger, says it's "aggressively" ddlosing down hedges. But will take long time, as it's massive. They closed 1.7 million ounces in last quarter of 2001, leaving 14.6 million ounces to go. "To go" means buying, the reverse process to the sell/hedging process. Oh, how sweet it is. This is handwriting on the wall even dumbos can read. They're heading for the exits. Same stories heard round the world. Hedgers normally cover on weakness. Now they've been covering on strength, no choice. Worm has turned. The traffic signal has turned from red to green for gold. I suspect Barrick will go down with the ship, to save face & let the cartel hang on to a life raft as long as possible. Note the chart of Harmony here. It's a superb company; the chart reflects that & its non-hedging policy, & something else you may not realize: African golds have an edge over non-African golds. Their currencies crash, almost non-stop. They pay their costs in these depreciating currencies while getting income from outside, in $'s, euros, yen, etc. Also, they've had to cut costs in the 20-yr bear market, so now they have low overhead, falling costs, & high income. A rising gold price is frowsting. This means their profits statements for the 1st quarter will be fat! And on into the 2nd quarter. So, I recommend you have at least 3 African gold stocks, like Durban, Harmony, Goldfields. The big money ahead in gold stocks will be made in the junior shares, as always, but this time more dramatically. As gold rises, the major producers will rise more modestly than jrs, & those who are hedged will be sorely pressed to stay in business, depending on the size & nature of their hedges. So, we will undertake a stringent in-depth study of all juniors, a mammoth job, & present it here gradually as we research them. We're also going to hire a R&D team to ferret out hedging details that are secreted in mine reports & govt/SEC statements, & monitor daily changes! HSL has these 2 areas to itself, as no one is doing it. Regarding derivatives, no one understands them! We're lucky to have the foremost expert on the subject on our team. (Harry then shamelessly touts a specific microcap gold jr. that I won't bother to mention) He then adds - All jrs. are by that job description, speculative, so you don't make one a major position. But I recommend you accumulate 5-10 jrs, over time. Blockbuster info: (This was printed in our Gold Charts R Us service last week, reprinted here for Hslm's who don't get GCRU as it's top priority) We've been struggling to get hard data on hedge positions of all gold mines. They don't advertise it!! It's slow going. You have to go through each mine's quarterly reports & annual statements & back-up SEC filings. If you think it's easy, try it! It will take more time to get them all, if we ever can. But so far here's info for most of the most popular shares: Anglo Gold: they hedge approximately 83%, Sell. Barrick/Homestake: 50%, Sell. Newmont: 2%, but that's before they bought Normandy. Normandy: 51%, How much it increases Newmont's 2% unclear. Goldfields: 11%, A clear winner. Rio Tinto: 0%, ditto. Placer Dome: 64%, Sell immediately. Harmony: 0%, A winner. Freeport McMoran: 0% A winner. Durban Deep: info not yet confirmed, but I'd guess 8%. Is okay & they are taking out a loan to clear the small hedge. Is a winner. Note: most small junior golds don't hedge. But most isn't 100%. This list pays for your HSL subscription for years. Save it & you'll see I speak the golden truth. (smiley face) Futures (April 15, 2002) Gold: HSL traders entered longs as renewed strength (on 3/22) halted pullback action towards the 282.50-285.00 support area. Stops now no lower than 295.00-297.00. Many chart indicators now moving to neutral after developing worrisome downside divergence. ST direction remains unclear. The longer it takes to make 2 (consecutive)closes over 305, the greater the odds for more protracted consolidation action. All traders remain prepared to buy BIG on 2 (consecutive) closes over 305 (futures). Weaker Dollar Stronger Gold -- Giovanni Dioro, 07:14:05 04/20/02 Sat A weak dollar means stronger gold price denominated in dollars. Harry Schultz thinks the dollar is short term bearish and while he feels the dollar is still longterm bullish, he says that if the chart deteriorates enough in the nearterm it could make the longterm chart change to bearish. Here's what he said in his latest newsletter, dated Apr. 15, 2002: The US$, as I said last time on page 1, is still a competitive investment vehicle, long term. But its chart (vs. a basket of currencies) is short term scary. That in turn may or may not erode the longterm chart, which is still bullish. It is only prudent for USD holders to diversify into other currencies, just as central banks are doing! Yes the euro is the first choice, but the £ is looking good on the chart. I bought some lately. Best of breed, however, is the Norwegian Krone (see chart ) which is not only strong, but pays over 6% interest! Now we can't have everyone piling into the NOK; there isn't that much available, but among us Hslm's (harry schultz letter members) there's probably enough. Buy some. I have. (Ed. note: Chart is USD_NOK weekly from Dec. 1999 to present, showing NOK at threshold of around 8.6 NOK/USD. It is currently around 8.56 crowns to the dollar. You can see currency charts at www.goconvert.com ) Move partly out of the US$ fast as it's at a crucial support level, which if broken, would send chartists into a feeding frenzy. Under 117 basis futures USD index, you want to hit the exit. Canadian Dollar would look happy if it can climb over 635 in futures. Australian dollar strong, due to commodities. A backdoor approach to currency diversification is to hold foreign stocks, which automatically gives you their currency. The best currency is gold, in physical form. Buy some of that too! I did. --------------------------------------------------- To invest in Norwegian Crowns, Jyske Bank is a good choice jyske bank )You may also wish to read what Gary Scott thinks about currencies. He recommends Jyske Bank as being a great bank for borrowing the currency of one country and using leverage to invest it in another currency, in what he calls a multi-currency sandwich. Gary Scott's webpage is www.garyascott.com ) He has a search engine on the page. Combatting a Credit Collapse - @shell -- Giovanni Dioro, 06:44:00 04/20/02 Sat Shell, you're right. Today is not much different from the 1960's in that the govt sought to spend, spend, spend to avoid a credit collapse. In the 1960's there was the NASA space program, the vietnam war, and the explosion of social welfare in that so-called "new society" program by a texan president, Johnson. Today a similar texan president is doing the same thing - guns and butter, and it seems that the Fed is either directly or indirectly participating in markets more than ever. And then consider the role of Fannie and Freddie Mac in their endless supply of credit keeping the housing bubble alive. Missing urls -- Delta.au, 23:21:14 04/19/02 Fri ASX http://www.asx.com.au/asx/about/Feedback.jsp?referred= NCM http://www.newcrest.com.au/frameset.asp?section=contact SBM http://www.stbarbara.com.au/contact.asp Give us OUR Gold Index Back !!! -- Delta.au, 23:17:24 04/19/02 Fri ============================================== XGO PROTEST CAMPAIGN - Give us OUR Gold Index! ============================================== Send an email to one-two-three ( or ALL ) of these companies and let 'em know what we want ... WE WANT OUR GOLD INDEX BACK! ASX: click here ... click here ... Australian Gold Council: email@australiangold.org.au AurionGold ( AOR ) info@auriongold.com.au Lihir Gold ( LHG ) dma@lihir.com.pg Newcrest Mining ( NCM ) click here ... Sons of Gwalia gwalia@sog.com.au Croesus ( CRS ) croesus@croesus.com.au GRD Ltd ( GRD ) grd@grd.com.au Gympie Gold ( GYM ) info@gympiegold.com.au Resolute contact@resolute-ltd.com.au StBarbara Mines ( SBM ) click here ... There have been many complaints to the ASX on this already, given the gold sector's importance to Australian exports, and given the weight of the remaining gold stocks in the ASX. We may not be successful in overturning this ( rather poor ) decision, but we won't know unless we try! Give it a GO !!! we now need a perpetual state of war, danger, in order to keep the money supply growing enuf -- shell, 21:14:22 04/19/02 Fri to avoid critical deflation, and possibly depression--productive economic activity will no longer do trhat--we are now at that terrible stage in the cycle anyone agree? Silver -- Sharefin, 19:24:02 04/19/02 Fri The Prescription for Argentine Recovery From the very instant when free coinage of silver ounces with a floating value is announced, a wave of optimism and hope will rise up among the people, because this measure means the introduction of quality into the monetary system, an element that has been absent for many decades. The quality of silver, will spill over into the paper money and increase confidence in it, providing much needed relief in the present situation. Gold, War & Politics -- Sharefin, 09:42:15 04/19/02 Fri A War Against the Peacemaker On Sunday, the US government will launch an international coup. It has been planned for a month. It will be executed quietly, and most of us won't know what is happening until it's too late. It is seeking to overthrow 60 years of multilateralism, in favour of a global regime built on force. The coup begins with its attempt, in five days' time, to unseat the man in charge of ridding the world of chemical weapons. If it succeeds, this will be the first time that the head of a multilateral agency will have been deposed in this manner. Every other international body will then become vulnerable to attack. The coup will also shut down the peaceful options for dealing with the chemical weapons Iraq may possess, helping to ensure that war then becomes the only means of destroying them. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) enforces the Chemical Weapons Convention. It inspects labs and factories and arsenals and oversees the destruction of the weapons they contain. Its director-general is a workaholic Brazilian diplomat called Jose Bustani. He has, arguably, done more in the past five years to promote world peace than anyone else on earth. His inspectors have overseen the destruction of two million chemical weapons and two-thirds of the world's chemical weapon facilities. He has so successfully cajoled reluctant nations that the number of signatories has risen from 87 to 145 in the past five years: the fastest growth rate of any multilateral body in recent times. Gold -- Sharefin, 06:09:54 04/19/02 Fri 'Egypt's gold as plentiful as dust' Gold -- Sharefin, 06:03:40 04/19/02 Fri World gold prices shine in times of trouble Gold is back. Prices have grasped two-year highs and investor interest is at its keenest for 20 years, analysts said on Friday. Why? It's a jittery world. Step forward gold -- the "war commodity". Gold -- Sharefin, 21:19:48 04/18/02 Thu Gold believers look for dollar drop Owners of high-flying gold stocks look to a slipping dollar for evidence of fiscal turmoil, and in turn more gains for bullion miners. The dollar, says one of Wall Street's biggest believers in gold, may lend gold the ammunition it needs to notch further gains. John Hathaway, manager of the Tocqueville Gold Fund (TGLDX: news, chart, profile), said Thursday morning the dollar's little-noticed drop against the euro this week bodes poorly for financial markets. "The dollar is in the process of breaking down against the euro, yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar," Hathaway warns. "The investment implications are higher interest rates, higher inflation, lower equity market valuations, higher gold prices." Gold -- Sharefin, 21:17:25 04/18/02 Thu Japan to send gold soaring Japanese investors facing financial ruin are expected to switch a portion of their $11 trillion in savings to bullion in coming months in a move which could trigger an unprecedented run in gold demand. The World Gold Council is forecasting the possibility of a large-scale systemic collapse of the Japanese banking system and the decimation of the country's currency; only a 0.1 percent conversion of cash to gold would drum up demand for 200 tons of bullion. Once investors no longer have the comfort of knowing the government will bail them out if banks go belly up, commentators expect wholesale liquidation of deposits. When "weaker banks" were ordered to go bust in January and February, while their depositors were still covered, gold offtake peaked, with the WGC registering consumption of 45 tons in the first quarter alone. Gold -- Sharefin, 21:08:28 04/18/02 Thu Gold Climbs on Expectations of Reduced Global Mining Supply Gold prices had their biggest gain in three weeks on expectations for reduced supply from mining companies. Gold -- Sharefin, 21:05:09 04/18/02 Thu World Gold Council's Toshima Speaks: Japanese Demand - audio file - 26 minutes long Itsuo Toshima, regional director for Japan and South Korea at the World Gold Council, speaks about factors driving gold purchases in Japan and the outlook for an increase in gold demand. He speaks at a World Gold Council meeting. Reasons for gold purchases, outlook for increased demand Listen here Gold -- Sharefin, 21:00:59 04/18/02 Thu Gold Fields boss gets WGC chair Under Thompson's charge, the World Gold Council will focus more time on marketing gold beyond the sale of jewellery. In fact, one of Thompson's projects is to bring into common use an investment instrument that will allow the retail market to more easily access gold without having to buy bullion or suffer the vicissitudes of owning a gold stock. This will be welcomed in South Africa particularly where owning gold outside of a coin is prohibited by law. Gold -- Sharefin, 20:58:10 04/18/02 Thu New gold product in Hong Kong Hong Kong's Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange Society will begin trading a new "kilobar" contract on Friday in a bid to hold its own with the up-and-coming Shanghai gold exchange. The new product is a spot contract equivalent to 5kg of four nines' gold - 99.99% purity - the most popular grade in Asia. The Hong Kong exchange aims to match the product to be offered on the future Shanghai gold exchange, thereby enabling arbitrage trading between the two. Gold -- Sharefin, 20:54:23 04/18/02 Thu Large Gold Mine Discovered in China's Guizhou GUIZHOU, April 18 Asia Pulse - Sources of the Guizhou Provincial Institute of Geological Prospecting disclosed that they have found a gold mine in the southwestern part of the province with an estimated perspective reserve of more than 120 tons. Moreover, they have found three gold abnormal belts in Rudong and four abnormal belts in Longyin. New Gold Reserves Found in China's Jilin JILIN, April 18 Asia Pulse - Two gold ore bodies stretching over 5,700 meters were discovered by the Geological Prospecting Brigade of Tonghua City in China's northeastern Jilin Province. The reserves, located under the quartzite layer in Baicheng Prefecture, are estimated at about 30 tons. The thickness of the two bodies is nine meters, and the average ore grade was four grams/ton. The brigade said it has also has located three more target areas Paper -- Sharefin, 17:41:16 04/18/02 Thu Dollar Bills, Bulls and Deficits In a shocking revelation, the U.S. Treasury has announced it will soon issue a new paper currency. The Wall Street Journal of March 19 reported that the Treasury will maintain the design of the old currency but will introduce "subtle colors." This announcement coincides with the dollar near all-time record strength against a basket of other major international currencies. So what does this portend for the future of the U.S. Dollar? Devaluation! There can be no other explanation for the introduction of a colored currency, which will represent a bifurcated dollar policy of a domestic-use-only dollar for Americans and a foreign dollar overseas. The U.S. version of the currency would be valid only within U.S. borders. It also is a rather convenient way of driving out hoarded cash from among U.S. citizens who try to circumvent the banking establishment. This is the second time the Treasury has attempted a major overhaul of the domestic dollar. The last time was in 1996 when a major redesign of the actual engraving began and was completed in 1999 featuring water marks, security threads, altered portraits, and a script of metallic ink at the bottom of one side of the bills. When run through a scanner utilized in processing checks by a bank, it reveals a hidden code number which allows cash to be traceable. Comments Lawrence Patterson of Criminal Politics magazine, "There has been more manipulation of the money than you can imagine!" The colored money is due out in 12 months or so according to the WSJ, but may be introduced sooner. Advises Patterson, "Convert cash hordes in advance, or lose it!" As one analyst notes, "A colored currency alongside of the regular green currency raises suspicion of a dual-currency system, with the colored currency utilized either internally or externally and the alternate currency limited likewise." Another shocking revelation concerning the dollar was revealed in the March 20 edition of WSJ. In an article appearing under the headline "Citibank Wins Broader Role in Shanghai," it was learned that the citizens of Communist China have banking options now that Americans do not. Specifically, Chinese citizens can have a foreign currency bank account in the Shanghai branch of Citibank. This means that an ordinary Chinese citizen can denominate their savings at a local bank in a currency other than the local Yuan. This is tantamount to you being able to walk into your local bank and denominate your savings account, a certificate of deposit, or checking account in Pound Sterling, the Euro, or the Swiss Franc! According to Criminal Politics, "The reason you are not allowed this option, while under Communist rule these options are granted, is because the future of the U.S. dollar is not what it seems! The dollar will be massively devalued because we are approaching unsustainable trade debts of a trillion dollars a year. That's one thousand billion dollars a year. "The accumulated trade debts over the decades are another figure. That figure is already in the trillions of dollars and cannot be allowed to race ahead. Your standard of living will be taking a drastic decline because imported products will be costing you a lot more so that the trade debts can be reduced. This is why you cannot denominate a bank account in non-U.S. currencies." This information should be a shock to you, and you should take heed in deploying your assets outside the U.S. dollar. giovanni dioro -- auspec, 15:51:22 04/18/02 Thu Thanks for the directions. I meant to put up a post that said you and I are in such agreement on silver that one of us is expendable. Don't know what happened to it, probably 'my bad'. Regards! lost posts, check the archives -- giovanni dioro, 12:04:09 04/18/02 Thu Auspec, Check the archives located on the top right of the screen. the most recent is the 1st archive. Auspec -- Sharefin, 05:26:58 04/18/02 Thu Where's the message? What lost post where??? Ross -- auspec, 20:44:33 04/17/02 Wed Pretty scary message from Armstrong! Can you say "Hatchet Man"? Lost Posts? -- auspec, 20:43:10 04/17/02 Wed Either I'm losing it or a couple posts are missing? @ OmarD.. @ Nick.. @ PeterA.. Give Nick the Credit -- Tai, 18:56:28 04/17/02 Wed Hello OmarD... Thanks for the 5-Star nomination. I must humbly ReDirect the Honor to Nick at his Sharefin Golden Pot Forum, for originally Posting it there. His site is one I scan frequently, and I often find things there of interest to readers at ER... So, here is the url to his Forum, and I heartily recommend it to all: http://www.voy.com/65437/ Next. let me add some commentary for your amusement: The "Sultan & Shaitan" article had me puzzled. At first glance, as I speedily read thru the snippets Nick had Posted, it appeared to be just another of the dime-a-dozen miseast harangues. Some typically biased diatribe taking one side or the other. From the Author's name (Israel Shamir) I assumed it would be a pro-Israeli/anti-Islamic piece. I don't need that, nor do I need the opposite. There are already enough of those on the Internet, causing needless antagonism. So why (I asked myself) is it here at the Sharefin Forum.?. Nick does not allow stuff like that to clog his News Archive Forum. He likes to focus on Gold and Precious Metals content. So I read further, albiet somewhat hesitantly... Then it caught my eye, towards the bottom of his snippet: Laos. Pathet Lao fiat currency, being accepted by an Asian storeowner, from the Pathet Lao (communist) soldier, yet refusing to take the same fiat from the Journalist. Explaining (the punchline) "Only take it from customer having gun". So, that invoked an instant liking for the article, as I have many friends from Laos who relate the same instinct. Gold is King in trade; in wealth preservation; allover SE Asia.!. And this would prove it to all my skeptics at EagleRanch. {wink} So I snatched it and RePosted just that snip of it at ER... The Laos portion. Then comes PeterA's comment and Thanks. That he found the Author very credible on many subjects. Well, seeing Peter's accoclade, I scurried back and clicked the Link to the article, which ironically, embarrassingly, I hadn't fully read yet. And again, there at the (Israel Shamir) Site, I was hesitant to read the lengthy article. "Do I really have to read all this about more middle East squabbles.?." Well, if PeterA insists. I did it. And much to my surprise, it wasn't at all like I had imagined. No diatribe. No antagonism. No bias. No hate. Just common sense. Here was a guy (Israel Shamir) with some honest dialog, and concrete do-able ways to solve the problems both there, as well as applicable to the larger economic problems looming in the entire world. This then was really important commentary: ie: Adapt the Islamic/Pakistani/Indonesian idea of the Gold Dinar as currency, worldwide for trade and international settlements, as well as it's concept of non-usery (no interest lending). He (Israel Shamir) makes many good points and I particularly liked where he showed it would be well received even throughout the Christian community (as well as Jewish) (and of course, Islamic) as in the distant historic past. Usery was a bummer, and used only by those intent to harm others either physically or economically. Or both. Usually all three. Another facet that would serve JoeSixPak and mankind in general, is the Gold Dinar and interest-free concept of revoking all current userious debts. Home mortgages and such. Wouldn't it be nice. And let the (usurious) leeches get the short end of the stick for once. Or as he says: Let them stand in line at the welfare office which will keep them busy in a new -and harmless- way.!. Well, all in all it was an interesting article, one with real solutions instead of trite arrogance and hateful non-solutions. All should read it when they have time. Glad you, OmarD, enjoyed it and saw it the same as I did. I kinda thought it would bring you out of your rain forest fortress. And it did. That's great news too.!. ...Tai FYI: Once again, the link to the full article: http://www.israelshamir.net/sultan.htm Gold -- Sharefin, 06:03:02 04/17/02 Wed AngloGold's Godsell Comments on Higher Gold Prices and Output Bobby Godsell, chief executive of AngloGold Ltd. and chairman of the World Gold Council, comments on higher gold prices and whether they will encourage new production of the metal. He was speaking at a media conference in Melbourne during a meeting of the council. ``Every single indicator suggests that the major new discoveries of the 1980s are coming to the end of their reserve life. Exploration spend, as a leading indicator, is down. ``It's much more likely that gold production is likely to be flat and declining in the next 10 to 15 years than rising as it did, very substantially, over the last 15 years. ``It seems that new mine supply is at worst neutral and at best a positive factor for the gold market. ``The other factors on the demand side are all moving from the negative column to the positive column. The idea that gold is a lousy investment, the idea that equities will continue rising forever, the idea that currency systems have no risk, the idea that countries like Japan and the U.S. cannot face a banking crisis -- all of that has changed and it's the combination of the two that I think is favorable for the market. ``What we are seeing is the demythologizing of some elements of the gold market that have held it captive for the last 10 years in a very unhelpful way. ``The notion that 30,000 tons was going to be put on to the market in a very short period of time by the world's central banks led to a fundamental misunderstanding of our market. ``Markets generally are self-correcting. Where markets fail is where market participants become obsessed with a great new idea, like the dot-coms.'' Gold -- Sharefin, 06:01:15 04/17/02 Wed Investment adviser punts N.American gold firm Investment advisers Goldman Sachs of the US said that Newmont Mining represented the best mining company leveraged to any upswing in gold prices. Gold -- Sharefin, 05:59:23 04/17/02 Wed Gold mines warn of supply fall, analysts sceptical Gold mining companies have warned that supplies of the precious metal are poised to fall sharply but analysts believe the world has more than enough gold to prevent major price spikes. The latest producer to sound the alarm bell that the industry was running out of gold faster than it could replace it was world number two miner AngloGold which predicted that the big discoveries of the last 20 years would run dry. "Over the next 10 to 15 years, new mine supply is likely to be neutral or negative than it is to increase as it did in the last 15 years," AngloGold chief executive Bobby Godsell said on the sidelines of a mining conference in Australia on Wednesday. Gold -- Sharefin, 05:57:36 04/17/02 Wed Japan's Gold Demand to Surge on Bank Worries, Gold Council Says Gold demand in Japan that's helped prices rise 7 percent this year may surge again this quarter as concern builds about the economy and bank solvency, the producer-funded World Gold Council said. Japanese investors trebled their gold purchases in the first quarter of 2002 just before the government imposed limits on bank deposit insurance, Haruko Fukuda, the council's chief executive, said during a media conference. The surge in buying spurred bullion prices to jump and contributed to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raising its long-term forecast for the metal to $325 an ounce. Concern about weakness among Japan's banks, which hold 151 trillion yen ($1.5 trillion) in problem loans, is expected to resurface as the reporting season approaches. ``It's not going to go up in a straight line,'' Fukuda said, referring to Japanese bullion demand. ``Around about June we will see another bout of uncertainties because banks report their mid- year results in September and various indicators come out.'' Japanese investors purchased 45 metric tons of gold during the three months ended March 31, up from 12.6 tons a year earlier, the council said. Demand in 2002 may reach 200 tons, Fukuda said. Spot gold prices have gained as much as 9.6 percent this year. The precious metal recently traded at $299 an ounce. The jump in prices and demand occurred before the Japanese government cut insurance coverage on savings accounts of more than 10 million yen ($75,000) from April 1. An extension of those reforms in April 2003 may stimulate a further increase in gold demand, Itsuo Toshima, the council's regional director for Japan and South Korea, said during a council meeting in Melbourne. About 54 percent of Japanese assets are held in bank deposits, he added. Terrorist Attacks Last year Japan's third quarter gold demand rose to 22 tons from 9 tons in the second quarter after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. sparked concern the value of other investments may fall. The bankruptcy of Enron Corp. and Japanese supermarket chain Mycal Corp. and also Argentina's failure to make a payment on a Samurai bond due in 2005 have also encouraged Japanese investors to buy more gold, Toshima said. ``A combination of those three factors have induced Japanese investors looking for some investment vehicle that has no-one's liability,'' he said. To further promote investment demand, the council is mulling the introduction of gold-backed investment products, Fukuda said during the media conference, declining to give details. The products ``will be sold in significant enough quantities to be attractive to major institutional investors,'' she said. ``We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars, because otherwise no institution would be interested.'' |
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