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Gold/Mining/Energy : Strictly: Drilling and oil-field services -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: diana g who wrote (79419)	11/18/2000 11:06:55 AM
From: SliderOnTheBlack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

Actually Princess Di di - COAL is a great idea... New technololgies in controlling emissions have made coal fired power plants a very real and longterm factor in our future energy policy. Coal is plentifull and cheap (like gold of late (VBG) and with record Oil & Gas prices - Coal investments may be a bit more savy than you realize... I'm looking at some right now... Now if we can only find a way to convert some of these power plants to "Gold fired" - maybe we can finally ramp the POG ? Di, Di, Di, - 5-6 major bull markets in Gold/XAU stocks in the last 15 years compares VERY favorably with Oil & the OSX here actually ~ Gold, like Oil is a cyclical commodity; but unlike Oil - it is money; was money and will ALLWAYS be money and in times of trouble - it is the ONLY form of money worth holding... Gold has been given it's last rites by far, better than you little Di; and each & everytime it's come back like a Phoenix and now - Gold Stocks are actually at their ALLTIME LOW's - yes; "alltime" lows - on a valuation basis; price per ounce of production & reserves and many are still very profitable ! Any stereotypical derogatory comments one can make about investing in Gold stocks - one can make equally about Oil & Oil stocks - very, very similar. You just need the attention span of a mature adult and be able to exercise a bit of patience and to tread where few dare - when few do; to make money in these contrarian of contrarian cyclical bottoms. Gold having 5,6 major bull markets in the last 15 years is certainly not dead - it's merely a traditional cyclical sector - behaving like a cyclical sector does ! - nothing more, nothing less and it amazes me that people don't see it as simplistically as it is. The same negative arguements have been made continually for the last 15 years about Gold - nothing and I mean nothing; new. But; there is one thing that is new for the Gold Bulls ! - and that is that never; never, ever - has ANYTHING ever existed on the short side; as what exist in the Gold Carry Trades' short/derivative position presently. It partly resulted out of the LTC bailout, partly out of greed & excess and partly out of the ESF/PPT having to necessarially "stabilize" the POG as to be able to calm any inflation fears during the Rubin-Greenspan Money pump & $30 Oil...and to build, then maintain King Dollar. As in all things worldly; their is a price to pay for all of that & we will pay; trust me - we're beginning to pay right now and Gold will have it's day. As I said; Gold - now more than ever & if not now; when ? ... and by the way; don't all girls like gold ?

To: diana g who wrote (79419)	11/18/2000 12:46:33 PM
From: Gottfried	Respond to of 95453

diana, >As with gold, these are investments which have been going down so long they Must be ready to go up< Excellent satire! A keeper. Thank you. Gottfried

To: diana g who wrote (79419)	11/18/2000 8:50:19 PM
From: edward miller	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

OT "Humor" got snakeoil? Yes. Washington is currently at flood stage. :^D

To: diana g who wrote (79419)	11/18/2000 9:01:42 PM
From: Roebear	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

diana g, OT, Hmmmm, I believe I detect a sarcastic tone? You left out the buggy whip manufacturers, ggg. But so provincial of you diana g, you see gold is up nicely in most other currencies, just not against the almighty dollar. Not yet. Oil was quite out of fashion just a couple years ago, so soon we forget. Of course we don't need gold to run our SUV's, those printed pieces of paper will be accepted by all to fill them up. Fiat=Faith. But some seem to insist on Euros for their oil now, how peculiar. How could anyone lose faith in the fiat currency of a country that can't even count its votes??? So don't count gold out yet. Not worth a continental is still in our history, it is not in the history of gold. I'm not a true gold bug, I've got no buried treasure troves of the yeller. I've traded the stocks with gusto and without any partisan loyalty, buying bottoms and selling tops. But a trend change is coming, just wait and see... Roebear

To: diana g who wrote (79419)	11/20/2000 12:59:03 AM
From: dfloydr	Respond to of 95453

diana G: Thanks for a very good laugh. Good satire is delightful but rare. My problem with gold is that years ago every national treasury that could afford to had to be a buyer of gold and even a small country treasury meant a lot of buying power. Today, I can not think of one treasury off hand that is a steady gold buyer. So those who bought most of the world's gold production over the past hundred years are not there today and their whole reason for doing so has been relinquished. From the sounds of it though, we may have enough gold bugs on this thread to make up for at least Lichtenstein or Monaco ;-)

To: diana g who wrote (79419)	1/29/2001 8:23:57 PM
From: Now Shes Blonde	Respond to of 95453

diana RE:got snakeoil? asiawise.com Snake Oil? By Christina DeFalco, AsiaWise 29 Jan 2001 15:49 (GMT +08:00) The first in what's likely to be a string of big initial public offerings by Chinese companies in the Year of the Snake is ready to kick off next month with the government's sale of a 20% stake in CNOOC, China's biggest oil exploration company. As with most Chinese stock issues, it's packaged by breathy underwriters as one of the most promising entries ever into the fast-growing China market. Yet as in those other cases, you have to read the fine print to know the risks you're taking by buying shares in big companies that are majority owned by the Chinese government. The most important places to look with this one: regulatory and pricing policies. CNOOC's IPO is big, even by Chinese standards. China's government is looking to sell about 1.6 billion shares that would be listed in Hong Kong and New York, or about a 20% stake, in a sale that could be worth around US$1.3 billion. Other big Chinese offerings considered to be in the works in 2001 include the People's Bank of China, Baoshan Iron, Sanmao Railway and Jitong Network. A smaller Chinese company, TravelSky, is launching an offering within the next two weeks. The early reviews for CNOOC make its IPO tempting. The company's successful streamlining and modern business style make it sound like a private company instead of one that's government-run. Its vast expanse of untapped resources should position the company well to profit for years from China's fast economic growth and its emergence as a supreme power in Asia. That's what CNOOC would like you to think, anyway. After CNOOC's planned 1998 listing fell through, the company and its financial managers are being very careful this time. Since uncertainties about China's regulatory environment and the protected market contributed to the failure of the first IPO effort, the company and its underwriters are putting a new spin on those potential risks. They've emphasized China's pending accession to the World Trade Organization, increasing privatization measures and other reforms to increase investor attraction to the company's fundamentals. Cost-cutting plans and deals with major players such as Shell have reinforced CNOOC's credibility. It seems like it's worked. Compared with China's other oil giants, PetroChina and Sinopec, CNOOC actually has a lot going for it. The company has only a fraction of the workers of PetroChina and Sinopec, who still support thousands more employees than they need – and will be responsible for redundancy packages even if they let them go. PetroChina and Sinopec trade at around 3.5 times 2001 earnings, while many analysts estimate CNOOC should be valued at 5.0 times its earnings. Also, CNOOC's cost per barrel of oil is roughly $3.50, while PetroChina and Sinopec rack up more than $4. CNOOC also has a virtual government-granted monopoly on offshore oil exploration. They've got lots of space to cover; twice the size of the Gulf of Mexico but with only a fraction of the exploratory wells. The potential is high; oil industry analysts predict that over the next decade CNOOC will sustain one of the highest production growth rates in the world. It's hard not to catch the enthusiasm. If only the company wasn't operating in a regulatory environment characterized by confusing government policies and price-fixing. Even after its IPO, CNOOC will remain majority state-owned and continue to take orders from government regulatory authorities with different agendas. It has been reported, for instance, that the State Administration of Petroleum and Chemical Industries (SAPCI), the main industry watchdog, has an uneasy relationship with the state-owned oil companies. This is not surprising, as SAPCI has affiliations with the State Economic and Trade Commission (SETC) and the State Development Planning Commission (SDPC), and no one's quite certain how to act to avoid stepping on toes. SAPCI's future is uncertain, as it was established in March 1998 with a three-year duration; it is rumored SAPCI may be shut down. Confusion as to who will be in charge could impact share prices. As for CNOOC's products, the government controls wellhead, ex-refinery, wholesale and retail prices for everything except crude oil, whose price has been linked with the international market since reforms in June 1998. Increasing oil imports are making it difficult for authorities to control prices; and the government is constantly trying to come up with plans to keep rising prices under control. In turn, that puts pressure on CNOOC to cope with a market environment in which it has scant experience and the burden of bureaucratic meddling. To be sure, around 70% of CNOOC's output is crude oil. But don't underestimate the power government regulation can have over the stock's value. It was only a few months ago that a rumor Beijing was going to change its mobile phone billing policy caused stock prices of China Telecom and China Unicom to plummet. And while CNOOC may have a protected area for oil exploration now, what happens if the government decides to open the area to other companies? In you're in it for the long term, the investment may be a good one – it's got a vast amount of territory for oil exploration, while China's demand for oil is increasing exponentially. But the industry – and China – has a long way to go before all the kinks are ironed out and investors see anything resembling a transparent playing field. And until that happens, beware the moans of foreign investors in other breathy China stock sales that have been left paying for their ignorance.