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To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (125314)	5/21/2001 7:56:22 AM
From: craig crawford	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

I'm not as sophisticated as HJ. He is the worldly futures & currency speculator. I'm just doing some large volatility option plays on gold stocks. I am slanted pretty bullish though. (So far so good, see the bold in the article below, although they are referring to options on futures, not stocks). I did buy some Jun 10's on HM for 15 cents. Just as much fun as going to the casino. Gold is pretty wild overnight, coming close to $300, then selling off. It's fighting it's way back though, up about $5-6 now. Silver is up a few coppers. Gold bullion prices hold firm, seek new range 5/21/2001 6:11:00 AM LONDON, May 21 (Reuters) - Gold bullion prices were holding firmly to their massive weekend gains during European trade on Monday, and were seen settling in a new higher range during the session. Having gained some seven percent since the European close on Friday, gold prices shot up during New York trade as funds came back into the market en masse, paying up aggressively at the close after pushing gold $8 higher over the previous two sessions. By 1000 GMT spot gold <XAU=> was trading at $288.25/$289.25 a troy ounce versus $286.00/$286.70 at Friday's New York close. The morning fix at $288.35 was the highest since June 30, 2000. "It's looking for a new trading range now, between $282 and $292 with support looking good around $285," said one Geneva-based trader. With volatility in the options markets at levels not seen since March last year, players were bracing themselves for more volatility to come. One-month option volatility, an indicator of market thought on future price moves, was quoted at around 30 percent -- having skyrocketed from a previous 15 percent on Friday, which was still above the 12 percent in normal, steady trade. The one-month options do not expire until the end of the month and traders said the strike prices were "all over the place. "It's difficult to pinpoint anything at the moment, because the market's gone a bit crazy," said one. Last week's commitment of traders data on the COMEX futures market in New York showed that funds had surprisingly switched from a large net short position to net long before the rally took off. "This last fact suggests that fresh fund buying rather than short-covering has helped push prices higher and may indicate that gold prices have more chance of being sustained at current levels than if the reverse had been the case," said Barclays Capital in a market report. But traders and analysts were still second-guessing the reasons for the rally, with many players in Istanbul for the London Bullion Market Association's annual gold conference. Other metals were quiet in comparison, with silver <XAG=> following gold's lead, last at $4.57/$4.59 from the New York close at $4.565/$4.585. The platinum group metals were steady, ignoring a report from Russia that a draft presidential decree was being prepared to allow the export of precious metals without licences or quotas. While analysts found the idea "somewhat unlikely", local agency Prime-Tass quoted Deputy Finance Minister Valery Rudakov saying the decree had been agreed upon with the presidential administration. Platinum <XPT=> was last slightly firmer at $614.00/$619.00 from $612.00/$617.00 while palladium <XPD=> was up marginally at $645.00/$665.00 from $644.00/$659.00. REUTERS Rtr 06:11 05-21-01