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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: long-gone who wrote (38957)	8/14/1999 1:45:00 AM
From: C.K. Houston	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116927

CBOT still not fully functional. Has nothing to do with Chicago power outage. MCI network problems. Affecting global network. No broadcast media coverage of MCI problems. Only news services now. Haven't seen anything in a print publication though. Very interesting, huh? Problems have been going on for 8 days with CBOT .... "The outages affected about 15 percent of MCI WorldCom's network and an estimated 70,000 [business] customers such as the CBOT, Internet service providers, banks and other businesses that rely on high-speed frame relay networks to exchange large amounts of computer information in short and frequent bursts." "The CBOT, the largest U.S. derivatives exchange, said Friday its electronic trading system, Project A, would remain shut until Sunday night when the exchange moves to its backup system indefinitely." ""Market users worldwide depend on Project A around the clock and MCI WorldCom has let them down for one full week." techstocks.com Cheryl

To: long-gone who wrote (38957)	8/15/1999 1:43:00 PM
From: Lane Hall-Witt	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116927

Richard, I couldn't tell you -- I suppose it all depends on how a person wants to see the numbers. There are a lot of people seeing conspiracies out there, and a lot of others who say the conspiracy theories are baloney. To say the least, it's sobering that Goldman was alleged to have been on the short side and then suddenly pops up long 14.8 tons; at the same time, it certainly seems "convenient" that Goldman was able to pick up a boatload of metal at the lowest prices in 20 years, even as the speculative side of the market was building a large net short position. cftc.gov It's impossible to tell what Goldman's strategy is. It seems that they could make a lot of money by hoarding that metal and sparking a short squeeze. But maybe they are securing a large supply of metal so they can keep the downward momentum going by loaning it out or selling it as needed; maybe this gold is an insurance policy in case the central banks back off on their threats to continue putting metal into the market. I'm thinking short squeeze, but the paper trading in commodities is so complex (unreal) that it's difficult to tell what pros might be doing when they're playing the real stuff. Is long really short and short really long? So: conspiracy or not? I don't know. I do know that I sympathize with the feeling behind a recent article from South Africa's Mail & Guardian, which slams paper traders for making quick dollars on the short side, with absolutely no regard for the suffering of thousands of dislocated miners. mg.co.za As hard as it is to believe, sometimes these games in the capital markets -- which can seem like so much fun in their abstractness -- have real consequences.