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To: craig crawford who wrote (110649)	6/28/2001 7:55:37 PM
From: yard_man	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

I'm feeling better already, I used to have to go over to the GPM thread and listen to Benes-son & Hutch-es to get my weekly dose ... Thanks -- LOL

To: craig crawford who wrote (110649)	6/28/2001 10:51:36 PM
From: LLCF	Respond to of 436258

<like i said, if you are great at timing, i would say that abx is not your best bet. > Conversly, if you stick with ABX you had better hope THEY are good timers. DAK

To: craig crawford who wrote (110649)	6/29/2001 4:51:09 PM
From: pater tenebrarum	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

<<gold could easily hit 200. tell me why it can't. interesting that many on this thread believe the market is going down for the count yet gold will magically hold up? doubtful. if the market tankolas so will gold. your best bet is to hope the market rebounds in a big way.>> i can tell you why not. at that price, a large percentage of global gold production would simply cease, and the gold carry trade would blow up. there is absolutely no reason why gold should be correlated to the stock market...they sometimes go the same way, and sometimes the opposite way. the only provable long term correlation is the inverse correlation of gold to the dollar. again, has nothing to do with stocks. <<you're absolutely right. abx has underperformed for the last several months. it has far outperformed over the last several years.>> who cares? the last several years were a bear market, anyone in gold stocks during that time made a grave mistake, regardless of which gold stocks were held. <<hah! who says gold is in a bull market?>> the gold stocks say one is coming. they ARE in a bull market, since November of last year, and tend to lead the metal. <<i don't know enough about the specifics of harmony to comment, but obviously abx is viewed as more profitable in the current climate>> you should acquaint yourself with Harmony's specifics (since you seem interested in the sector). Harmony has outperformed ABX since January of '98 (over 5 years, their performance is the same) and it did so without hedging (so ABX has NOT been viewed as obviously more profitable...it isn't. it's just more overvalued). it's one of the few growth companies in the sector, and one of the best stocks to play its revival. <<perhaps some people just want to own gold stocks for the long-term as an insurance policy and aren't good at figuring out when to time bull and bear markets. they would have done much better with abx.>> i'm not one of those perhaps people, but even if i were, i'd rather be insured with a gold stock that doesn't carry the baggage of a hedge book. since that sort of invalidates the insurance aspect. a hedge book is only insurance against declining gold prices. <<umm, abx has far outperformed the nasdaq and the s&p 500 over the last 15 years! less hedged stocks like hm and nem have underperformed the nasdaq and s&p. proof is in the pudding!>> that's true. at one point, ABX was a great growth story, and it is that growth period during which the outperformance was achieved. over the past 5 years, ABX has performed dismally, as have of course other gold stocks. the performance gap between ABX and NEM is beginning to close however. another hint that it's a bull market in its beginning stages. <<like i said, if you are great at timing, i would say that abx is not your best bet. but it makes absolutely no sense for people to trash abx all the time and blame them for some worthless conspiracy theory when they are the best performing gold stock out there for many years! it's not logical for people to trash on abx and blame them for gold's problems when they have done the best for shareholders in such a trying period for gold bugs. but then most gold bugs aren't logical so why should i be surprised! >> i'm not a gold bug, and haven't accused ABX of being a member of a conspiracy. i trust my timing more than theirs however, and that is why i avoid the stock. besides, as i've pointed out, it's by far the most overvalued gold stock based on reserve valuation. there are better fish to fry in the sector.

To: craig crawford who wrote (110649)	7/5/2001 9:29:59 AM
From: Arik T.G.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

Craig, >>gold could easily hit 200. tell me why it can't. I will. Unlike other trading vehicles (currencies, tech stocks, junk bonds), Gold is mined in the real world, and its supply is limited. Pricing of this commodity is not very far from economics 101. While even commodities like Coffee and Sugar see many variables on the supply side (weather, politics and many more) and the theoretical supply on the long run is unlimited, Gold producing has a rigid cost structure in comparison and less variables on the supply side. Efficiency is growing on the long run but supply is not unlimited (until the nuclear way of creating Gold becomes cheap, or some astroids can be easily mined). Although many efforts have been made by producers in recent years to lower their cost, many mines are activated at cash cost per ounce of over $200 (total cost $250-$260). If spot Gold went to $200 lots of mines (my guess- one third to a half of the global production) would be closed, as they would have lost money on each ounce they would have produced. To enable supply be halved, something has to happen that would halve the demand (the stocks are not that big to have liquidation even take us to $200- as proven by the heavy liquidations by CBs in the past three years- much less to hold it there). Let's talk about demand- There are three sources of demand for Gold 1. Industrial 2. Ornamental 3. Monetary Although I don't have the numbers for each component, it's not very hard to show that industrial and ornamental demand will behave like regular demands and increase as price dropped. Monetary demand could behave differently, and my guess is that it is responsible for both bull and bear markets in Gold. Remember the Hunt Bros. IMO monetary demand for Gold has seen its worse already in '98-'00, and the '99 low is therefore firm IMO. Anyway, $200/oz is a pipe dream IMHO, too. ATG