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

To: Rarebird who wrote (58568)	9/21/2000 12:12:20 PM
From: LLCF	Respond to of 116763

<Just Imagine how someone who was considering taking a position in Gold stocks for the first time would react after reading some of these posts.> They'd press the 'ignore' button. DAK

To: Rarebird who wrote (58568)	9/21/2000 12:14:31 PM
From: Richard Mazzarella	Respond to of 116763

Rare, maybe that's the intent? LOL

To: Rarebird who wrote (58568)	9/21/2000 12:39:47 PM
From: Ahda	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116763

Our dollar is strong right? Being up to my Kazoo in tech oreinted thougths, I am not feeling to good right now. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. commercial bank earnings dropped sharply in the second quarter of 2000 to their lowest level since 1997, prompting regulators to warn on Thursday that ''caution lights'' were flashing for the industry. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said commercial banks' net income dropped to $14.7 billion from a record $19.5 billion in the first quarter as unusually high restructuring expenses at large banks and sharply increased reserves for future loan losses weighed on industry profits. ``For the past several months, the FDIC has been saying that yellow caution lights are flashing,'' the agency's chairwoman, Donna Tanoue, told a news conference. ``This report shows that some are flashing brighter.'' The industry's average return on assets, a basic yardstick of its profitability, fell to 0.99 percent in the second quarter -- the first time it has dipped below the 1.00 percent benchmark since 1992. Banks' provisions for losses on bad loans also increased by a significant 46 percent over the quarter, the FDIC said, again with large banks accounting for the majority of the increase. And the agency said it was seeing ``increasing signs of problems'' in commercial and industrial loans at large banks, with charge-off rates and noncurrent loan rates on the rise. ``The problems we are seeing in C&I loans are occurring in very favorable economic conditions -- which heightens concern,'' Tanoue said. Despite the overall dip in industry earnings, the majority of banks did report improved profitability over the quarter, the FDIC noted. However, the agency said the earnings problems experienced by a few large banks remained troubling as they reflected a rising trend in the riskiness of banks' assets. ``Banks are reducing their flexibility to address problems by changing the mix of their assets and liabilities, and that means banks will have more trouble adjusting if conditions shift and a downturn occurs,'' Tanoue said.