Hi Andreas,
I already bought Furukawa, on the 13th, Asia time, along with more HSBC, at Jyen 643 and HKD 79.75, respectively.
quote.yahoo.co.jp
I had owned Furukawa before:
Message 16228086
and remember this, during our glory days:0?
Message 14787705
I am buying because they (a) cut their exposure to JDSU, (b) have a future in China and Japan, (c) have lots of patents and know-how in optics, (d) produce many optic elements and components, and (e) can easily bounce to 800, allowing me to claim a frivolous present.
No, I am absolutely not going long this market with any intention of staying in the market, and I am also not going to do more than a few trades. If the upside was limited and dangerous before September 11th, it is far less and more, respective, now, as we have a World Police Action to contend with on top of a financial downward adjustment (I am trying to be politically correct) to fight.
I was considering going hog-wild long on scripts that may be thematic in this current environment of heightened feelings …
Message 16353749
<<Amtrak and Greyhound>> no listing, and no common.
But have since rejected the hog-wild option, after due deliberation, sober assessment, and quiet reflection. The bottom will not be until much later. The official intervention does not help matters as far as market confidence is concerned for (a) equity and bond market, and certainly gives more credence to (b) conspiracy theory in gold market
economist.com
QUOTE
Gold
Fingered?
Sep 13th 2001
From The Economist print edition
Gold has lost its glitter. Is there a conspiracy afoot?
LONG considered the ultimate hard asset, gold normally shines at times of financial turmoil. This week, if any, should therefore have been gold’s time to take up its traditional role as asset of last resort. But its performance was less than glittering (see chart). Could it be that its days as a safe haven are over? Or is there, as some believe, a conspiracy to keep it cheap?
Despite dire talk of recession and retaliation, gold rose by only 6% on September 11th, and it then lost nearly half that gain the following day. Bid-ask spreads widened to more than ten times their normal size, underscoring the lack of confidence in the metal. Philip Klapwijk of GFMS, a precious-metals consultancy in London, thinks that the gold price would be well above $300 if the market had responded to turmoil the way it did ten years ago.
Some of the lack of interest can be put down to a shortage of liquidity as Comex, the New York futures exchange that is near the World Trade Centre, closed early on the morning of September 11th. But even when the Bank of England went ahead with its 20-tonne gold auction on September 12th, prices were barely higher than in previous weeks. The gold price may yet soar. But, given the decline in equity markets provoked by the grim outlook for rich economies, gold has not provided the shelter that its fans expected of it.
Most gold experts see nothing more sinister in the low gold price than weak demand. In the past ten years, gold has shown precious little response to macroeconomic or political news of any kind. It has been dependent mostly on consumer and industrial needs.
Gold-conspiracy theorists, however, will have none of this. They have been claiming for a while that rich-country governments are keeping the gold price below $300 an ounce by lending masses of gold secretly to big banks. Some even argue that this gold-price “strategy” is based on an academic paper published in 1988 by no less a person than former American Treasury secretary, Larry Summers.
Giacomo Panizzutti, head of foreign exchange and gold at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), estimates that central banks worldwide have lent no more than 4,700 tonnes of gold to the market. The figure, published in The Alchemist, the London Bullion Market Association’s quarterly, is about one-third of the amount estimated by GATA (the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee) based in Dallas, Texas. GATA says it has uncovered evidence that the American government, assisted by others, has somehow “lent” thousands of tonnes to speculators and bullion banks, notably Citibank and J.P. Morgan Chase, to depress the gold price.
GATA’s website supports a court case filed in Boston by Reginald Howe, a gold consultant, against Alan Greenspan, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Mr Summers, the BIS and several big banks. Mr Howe accuses them of conspiring to fix the gold price. Few of the great and good appear to be taking the accusations seriously, hoping perhaps that the case will be thrown out at a hearing next month.
For the record, Mr Summers’s 1988 paper argued that if the nominal gold price can be “pegged by the authorities”, other asset prices will rise. GATA argues that this is precisely what Mr Summers did while in office under President Clinton, buoying American asset prices at the expense of poor gold-producing countries.
Gold bugs are smarting because, this week’s blip notwithstanding, the gold price continues its slow decline—which can easily be explained without a conspiracy theory. Mining has become more efficient; most governments want to reduce gold as part of their reserves; and, short of reviving the practice of burying princes complete with their gold hoards, the stock of gold does not diminish.
UNQUOTE
and now WSJ chimes in with ...
interactive.wsj.com
QUOTE
September 17, 2001
Commodities Corner
Gold's Brief Surge
Despite attack, the metal's outlook isn't bright
By CHERYL STRAUSS EINHORN
A knee-jerk reaction. that's what occurred in the gold market on Tuesday when the U.S. was attacked by terrorists. Prices rallied 5.4% that day, to $286 an ounce in London, after the major gold market in New York closed prematurely following evacuation of its Mercantile Exchange 9:08 a.m. (New York's "Merc," just west of the World Trade Center, is still standing, although building structures are being checked.) Though the move occurred in an illiquid market after the destruction of the twin towers, it was gold's biggest one-day gain in two years.
Investors were surprised by the move. While gold was once considered a safe haven during times of uncertainty and civil unrest, it has lost its luster in recent years as the financial markets have become much more sophisticated and better hedges against financial turmoil have become accessible.
The U.S. dollar, in particular, has become the safe haven of choice for investors worldwide. This was evident during the Russian and Asian financial crises, when gold sagged and the dollar rallied. "At the time, the response was muted," says a New York-based mining analyst at a major financial-services firm. "We were disappointed. We expected a lot more would happen."
This time, however, investors were worried about the greenback, and about the general welfare of our nation. Thus, they chose to buy gold. Investors didn't bid up prices for deferred delivery of gold. No, this time, in the heat of the moment, they bought the active contract; they were interested in physical gold.
Gold demand shifted to Japan at the start of that country's trading day Wednesday, where the TOCOM, as the Japanese market is known, traded up the daily limit -- $10.40 an ounce. Over 9,000 lots, or nine metric tons, of gold Buy orders were placed before the opening. The last time gold reacted this way was during the Persian Gulf War, when the price rallied over an eight-hour period and then settled back.
Here too, gold prices did not hold their gains -- nor should investors have necessarily expected them to as all other markets took stock. "The belief that gold always soars in times of crises is a misconception," contends Rhona O'Connell, an analyst at the World Gold Council in London. "Its role as a hedge against risk means that it tends to be bought in anticipation of a problem and then sold, if necessary, if and when such a crisis materializes."
Thus in London trading on Wednesday, gold prices fell $8, or 2.8%, to $278.25 an ounce, even as the bank of England sold 20 metric tons at $280 an ounce -- an auction where investors sought four times more bullion than was offered.
The TOCOM sold down as well, dropping $5.25 Thursday to $280.25 an ounce.
Gold stocks had a similar reaction to gold prices around the world. In Johannesburg, South Africa, the country's gold stock index, which is comprised of 11 companies, including Anglogold, Goldfields and Harmony Gold, shot up 9.3%, its biggest gain since September 1999, when 15 European Central Banks signed an accord promising to limit their official sector gold sales.
One day later, the index gave back some of its gains, falling nearly 5%. "But remember," cautions the New York mining analyst, "this is an emerging market, and the movement there right now is reflective of people getting out of emerging-market holdings in general. That has a depressing effect on gold equities, because they are one of the more liquid sectors there."
The story, however, was the same in Canada; when the Toronto Gold index opened Thursday, it sold off by over 4%.
As for what may happen in the U.S. when the gold market reopens -- and it is unclear as yet when that will be, given that the New York Mercantile Exchange is in the "frozen zone" where rescue workers continue to toil -- the New York analyst says he thinks prices will hold some of their gains. He thinks the Federal Reserve is likely to ease interest rates by another half-percentage point, which could spur inflation.
In addition, the risk premium in the market has obviously gone way up. "Things have changed," he says, "and gold is more valuable to me today than it was earlier this week."
He is less sanguine about gold equities. "If gold cannot move higher, there will be widespread selling, not only in the metal but also in the stocks. A lot of people buy these as a lottery ticket, even though the fundamentals are pathetic. There is no reason to own gold equities unless you think the gold price is going higher."
Gold closed Friday in London at $285.50 an ounce, within a dollar of its closing price after Tuesday's terrorist attack in the U.S.
UNQUOTE
We will simply have to see.
Chugs, Jay |
