Could BE :-)
  11:15p EDT Monday, September 27, 1999
  Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
  Here are excerpts from a long and meaty "Midas"  commentary by GATA Chairman Bill Murphy served tonight at www.lemetropolecafe.com. 
  The whole commentary can be read without charge by  taking a free trial membership to the cafe. I'm grateful to Bill for letting me share some of it with you here.
  Please post this as seems useful.
  CHRIS POWELL, Secretary Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
  * * *
  By Bill "Midas" Murphy www.lemetropolecafe.com
  September 27, 1999 
  Spot Gold $282.50 up $14.20 
  Spot Silver $5.34 up 10 cents 
  Where do we go from here? I was asked this all day  long. Day to day, that is very hard to tell. Last week  the world was bearish on gold. I told you I was looking  for a double and then a triple in the price from the  lows of last week. That is how I am approaching this  market. Like today, the big moves will come when out of  nowhere. Got to be in it to win it.... 
  The gold market is explosive. This is a big-picture  play. It is time to invest that way. That is how I see  it, anyway.... 
  Veneroso Associates has nailed the significance of the  statement by the European central banks. Veneroso  Associates has a prestigious institutional clientele  but gave me permission to present its "Gold Watch"  analysis of the central banks' announcement to the  Cafe. It is right-on, in my opinion. 
  Gold Watch said: 
  "We believe that the large dealers have known for a  long time from their own books how large the gold  lending business in fact has become. The large funds  that are short also may have been informed. Judging  from the behavior of these funds and dealers in the  past several months, we can conclude only that these  groups have been counting on significant new lending by  the European central banks to maintain the recent large  and growing supplies of borrowed gold needed to keep  the current gold price depressed. 
  "If this is so, the cessation of future large-scale  European central bank gold lending is explosive. 
  "The panic action of large market participants before  even the European trading hours commenced would suggest  that such large market participants realize this...." 
  * * * 
  Reuters commentary from my favorite chairman of a gold  company: 
  "'This means that the hedge funds that have been  looking for supply of gold from Europe have just lost  it,' said Robert Champion De Crespigny, chairman of  Normandy Mining Ltd, Australia's largest gold mining  house. 
  "'It also means that the giant cloud that has been  hanging over gold from European sales and European  lending has just disappeared,' de Crespigny said." 
  The good chairman may not want to talk to me, but he  talks as if he reads Midas.... 
  There is little doubt that a big rift has developed  between some of the European banks, the Japanese, and  the U.S. Treasury, possibly including Alan Greenspan.  They made statements all summer suggesting they were  not happy with the U.S. way of doing things in the  financial arena and with what was going on in our  financial markets. With all the comments that have come  out of U.S. officials about selling IMF gold and from  what we have been reporting to you, it is certain the  United States did not want to see this announcement at  all....  
  * * *
  I have been saying for a couple of months now, "We have  the shorts right where we want them." It would have  been only natural if you wondered if I had lost it. Now  I think you know why that commentary was delivered to  you several times. 
  * * *
  How about a drum roll here! Let's have an encore and  bring in the Cafe's John Brimelow: 
  "NEW YORK, Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Comment from John  Brimelow, director of international equities at Donald  & Co. in New York, on the outlook for gold prices after  15 European central banks agreed to limit their gold  selling and lending over the next five years. 
  "'I think we could see the price go up $100 in less  than a week. This is what happened in 1985. It turned  $45 in three or four days. The gold market shifted, and  it caught a lot of people my surprise. Just like today. 
  "It is very likely that many large lenders and  borrowers were predicating their activity on the  assumption that there would continue to be this huge  flow of European gold into the lending pool. If that is  to be contracted, the whole business of lending and  borrowing gold will have to be seriously reconsidered.  The whole game of borrowing and lending gold has become  much more dangerous. 
  "I haven't made up my mind why the European central  banks would make this announcement. The obvious answer  is that they've become convinced by petitioners that  the lending of gold at very cheap rates was, in effect,  undermining the value of one of their own assets. What  they've done is basically create a huge bubble in the  gold market by lending gold out at rates lower than 1  percent a year. 
  "Another answer may have to do with some sort of  struggle between the United States and the rest of the  world on the issue of hegemony and the dollar. The  argument runs that the Americans believe themselves to  be major economic beneficiaries of the fact that the  world uses the dollar as the reserve currency, and  therefore the other central banks have become extremely  jealous. Hence the opposition of the Americans to  proposals by the Japanese for an Asian currency zone.  This is a very deep issue that will take people a long  time to figure out. It's also possible the central  banks could just be interested in boosting the value of  their reserve.'"  
  * * *
  All this cannot be good for the U.S stock market. For  months now I have suggested that the banking index  would tell it all. It tanked again today, down a  whopping 15.70 to finish at 737.15 -- a new low close  for this move down. That portends bad news for stock  prices. Now that the gold psychology has changed in one  week (gold will not be discarded as a monetary reserve,  etc), gold demand could skyrocket in the West as the  stock market takes its comeuppance. 
  -END-
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