Hi Earlie,
Been looking around the British business news for comments on Gold and Gold Miners. Nothing much, just a paragraph in the FT that gold is at a four month high.
news.ft.com
Ananova is good for news searches
ananova.com
For example.. Need a cellphone -g-?
bday.co.za
Some gold news in SA.
news24.co.za
Golds keep on shining
Jodie Ginsberg
Johannesburg - Gold shares sparkled in an otherwise quiet market on Tuesday as investors snapped up stocks that were benefiting from strong metal prices.
The sector leapt 5.6% to a year high of 2349.5 in early trade. At 13:03 it was 3.1% higher at 2313.8. The all-share index added just 0.3% to reach 10614.2.
"Gold looks like where you'll want to be for the rest of this year," said Wayne Badura, equities dealer at fund managers Deel-Smith & Co in Johannesburg.
Gold gained more than US$4 on late Johannesburg levels overnight, extending a rally triggered by AngloGold after the bullion giant said it planned to trim its gold hedge book in the next 12 months.
AngloGold said on Monday it was unlikely to renew existing gold hedges this year, reducing the amount of gold sold forward.
Long dormant gold prices were already tipped to show an improvement in 2002 in the face of political and economic uncertainties that make gold seem like a safer investment.
Gold was trading at $290.05 an ounce at 13:01 from $287.40 on Monday afternoon in Johannesburg.
Gold Fields, which said on Monday earnings for the December quarter tripled compared to the previous period, rose over 4% to a new life high of R80.40, before settling back to R79.90.
AngloGold nipped up 4.3%, racking up a new high of R537. At 13:00 it was 2.2% higher at R526. Peer Harmony scampered to R99.60, up 3.2%.
Smaller miner Durban Roodeport Deep, with marginal assets that have become more profitable as the rand gold price rises, catapulted 12.8% to R30. DRD accounts for just 0.25% of the overall market.
Gold counters account for more than 6% in total.
The rise came despite a steady day for the usually volative rand, last trading 3c firmer at 11.61 to the dollar.
Commodity stocks, which earn in hard currency and pay costs in rand, tend to rise when the rand weakens as it did last year.
The rest of the market tracked weaker overseas bourses after Tokyo's Nikkei average dropped sharply for a third straight session on Tuesday, ending at a fresh 18-year low, and the US Standard & Poor's fell to a three-month low.
Wall Street is grappling with a crisis of confidence after accounting problems at energy trader Enron Corp led to its record collapse and sent investors back to corporate books in search of other possible problems.
Local banks, suffering from poor investor sentiment after a shock profit warning from Absa and a 100 basis point rise in interest rates two weeks ago, suffered the day's biggest losses.
Absa dropped 2.7% to R25.30, with Nedcor down 2.9% to R114.60.
Anglo American, which makes up 17% of the local market, added just 0.4% to reach R196.20. |
