Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Crimson Ghost who wrote (68290)	4/25/2001 8:04:08 PM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 116761

Wednesday April 25, 4:25 pm Eastern Time NY gold tracks volatile lease rates lower, silver down NEW YORK, April 25 (Reuters) - COMEX gold fell in quiet trade Wednesday, snowballing a bit after London closed and tightness in bullion borrowing markets subsided after an overnight spike in lease rates, dealers said. June gold <0#GC:> ended down $2.10 at $262.60 an ounce, trading from $265 to $262.20. Half the drop came after noon. Estimated volume was an underwhelming 20,000 contracts. Overnight turnover was constrained by the ANZAC Day holiday in Australia, which sapped trade of some hedgers and dealers. New York trade started sluggishly, with gold balking at gains on the back of an overnight jump in one-month lease rates to around 3.50/3.70 percent from Tuesday's 2.50 percent. ``It's just the view that gold should not go higher,'' said a floor broker. ``All we've seen is dealer selling and at this level we've seen fund selling,'' he said of the midday $263.50 level. Lease rates fell to around 3.10/20 percent by midday Wednesday and gold prices moved accordingly. Fresh lending came into the market to satisfy loan demand from month-end rollovers of short positions, dealers said. Speculators and mining companies fund forward gold sales and hedges by borrowing gold, to be returned at maturity or re-borrowed if the seller wants to remain short. ``It's really getting to be a tired game,'' said one dealer. ``People buy when lease rates start to spike and some lending came into the market and they bailed out.'' Gold has been yanked up and down by lease rate volatility this year. Since February short-term gold loan rates have traded erratically between 1 percent and 7 percent, higher than their historic norm of 1 percent or lower. Dealers have attributed the recent tightness to several factors. Years of central banks sales have depleted the amount of gold they can loan out, while borrowing demand from overseas hedgers may have increased because the strong dollar means they can receive a higher sales price in local-currency terms. ``We've got the continued weakness of the Australian dollar ,'' said Frank Aburto, precious metals trader at E.D. & F. Man. ``That weakness on gold, it appears to me, could have been from some Australian producer selling forward.'' Supply also looks tight in New York, where COMEX gold warehouse inventories dropped another 16,137 ounces to 858,307 ounces on Tuesday, following a huge 135,070 ounce fall Monday, which traders said pointed to gold headed to Europe. Spot bullion closed worth $262.00/50, down from the $263.85/4.35 close and London's late fix at $263.50. COMEX May silver <0#SI:> tumbled 8.8 cents to $4.44 an ounce amid liquidation and rollovers before delivery notices start on Monday. The range was $4.465-$4.35. ``The volume was completely on switches. Outright, there was nothing really special,'' said Aburto. Speculators holding silver contracts must sell outright or roll their longs to deferred contracts before first notice day, or risk having to accept unwanted physical metal. Rollovers frequently widen the price difference between nearby and costlier longer-dated futures. But Aburto said spreads between May and next-active July narrowed Wednesday, indicating potential spot tightness in silver as well. Spot silver was last quoted at $4.37/39, down from its close at $4.45/47 and the $4.435 fix Wednesday. July platinum <0#PL:> fell $3.90 to $597 an ounce. Spot platinum was quoted at $602/608. June palladium <0#PA:> slipped $2.25 to $707.75 an ounce and spot palladium fetched $695.00/725.00. biz.yahoo.com

To: Crimson Ghost who wrote (68290)	4/25/2001 8:39:13 PM
From: jim black	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116761

George, interesting and puzzling...on quicken.excite.com AEM (AGE.Tor), GG (G.Tor) and FN.Tor all went down except FN (FNMCF on NAZ, which stayed same)...on Toronto Exchange site all these companies gained a few pennies. Perhaps the gold stocks in Canada went down vis a vis dollar today. Only site I have is 24 hours old. Is it once more a case of almighty Goliath dollar?..uh,oh, here comes that skinny Hebrew kid with his funny little piece of leather at the end of strings. jim black