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

To: goldsheet who wrote (65966)	3/17/2001 5:43:31 PM
From: Rarebird	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 116900

Bob, stop tooting your friggin horn on behalf of your Website. You are so friggin crude and common you are such a joke. Like every one else on SI, we know you sold at the top and forecasted the bottom. Give us Break, Goldsheet! Cut the Baloney, Man! No one gives a Hoot! Just Post all your Trades in Real Time, Goldsheet, like I do!

To: goldsheet who wrote (65966)	3/17/2001 6:05:53 PM
From: russwinter	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116900

His production cycle (down 10% or 250 tons to 2004) seems reasonable to me as well. The 12 year moving average, advanced 6 years would correlate well to the prior capital boom in mining. The wild card and a case I've made is that increases in power and energy costs may quicken the process some, and we are seeing some evidence that I may be right there. The other wild card would be that the Aussie and Rand has overshot weakness to the US, and if reversed that should quicken the cycle. I've been saying that for a couple quarters and haven't gotten help yet. On the fab demand side the long term trend looks as good for gold as just about any commodity on the planet. From 1980 to now it's gone from 1000 to 3500 tons (he lumps scrap recycle in to arrive at his number). I'll bet it is largely a function of global population growth, and that most human beings above threshold poverty levels own some? And in countries like India they own it anyway (855 ton demand in 2000). The demand curve has gone a bit flat since 1998, and I wonder if some of the Y2K coin demand was front loaded, and has created an outlier? If so, then at what point could demand get back on normal course? If the Indian earthquake has hurt demand it may be a very short term factor right now as well, but shouldn't last. A worldwide depression would hurt western countries most, and could impact jewelry. That's the demand variable I see offsetting my strong bullish position. And I am not ruling the D word out. I guess where I'm departing from observers like you and Murenbeeld is my foray down the "far from equilibrium theory" or "piling on" path. Using Goldfields we have to account for the 1400 ton year deficient between mining production and demand. In 2000 Murenbeeld uses 516 tons as direct CB sales. His hedging number is consistent with what I've been saying: flat. Actually he says 14 tons was returned to CB vaults. With the big drop in contango this year, I think returns to the vaults may be increasing in 2001. Over the course of this year hedging should not be playing a role in accelerating supply. So that leaves 900 tons to account for in 2000, and likely as much this year. Scrap may have been a factor in early 2000 with the Asia trouble, but since then? What do you think? Looks like Murenbeeld uses 400-500 tons? But, I don't think it's that much at $260. I've never felt "disinvestment" made sense as terminology. However speculative activity does. So my theory is that speculative shorting to support interest rate carry trades is what is accelerating supply enough to close a good portion of the 900 ton gap (or 500 if scrap is that high). How does that get unwound? Derivative accident is one? How about the fact that the spreads between US Treasuries are getting so narrow versus lease rates that the trade just isn't lucrative anymore. And if treasury rates drop next week, it will be even more the case, and my hope is that the carry trades start unwinding thus strengthening POG. I also see the lease spike (still pretty high) as the CB's signal to speculators to get out of the trough. murenbeeld.com