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: gold$10k who wrote (73203)	7/10/2001 5:10:03 PM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 116758

Tuesday July 10, 4:55 pm Eastern Time Enforcement Director Leaving SEC Richard Walker, the SEC Enforcement Director, Is Leaving for the Private Sector By MARCY GORDON AP Business Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- The ``top cop'' of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Richard Walker, who established the agency's Internet enforcement program, announced Tuesday that he plans to leave for the private sector. News that Walker is stepping down as enforcement director came as President Bush's nominee to head the SEC awaits Senate confirmation. The White House announced in early May Bush's intention to nominate prominent securities lawyer Harvey Pitt as SEC chairman, but the nomination wasn't formally sent to the Senate until Tuesday. Laura Unger, the only Republican SEC commissioner, has been acting head of the agency since former chairman Arthur Levitt left in February. The death last month of Paul Carey left the SEC with only two commissioners, Unger and Isaac Hunt, out of its full complement of five -- which includes the chairman. Norman S. Johnson, a Republican appointed by former President Clinton, left in May 2000. Several lawmakers have expressed concern in recent weeks over the vacancies at the watchdog agency, which regulates securities markets, mutual funds and investment companies. Walker joins a stream of attorneys, accountants and examiners who have left the SEC in recent years for more lucrative jobs outside government, an exodus that Unger says has created a ``staffing crisis.'' Walker, 50, who was SEC general counsel from 1996 to 1998, became enforcement director in 1998 under Levitt, one of the most activist chairmen in the agency's 66-year history. Walker led the agency's pursuit of insider trading by individuals and accounting fraud and irregularities by corporations, pushed for more criminal prosecutions of securities laws violations by federal prosecutors and the FBI, and in 1998 set up the SEC's 240-strong ``Cyberforce'' team that prowls the Internet for investment scams and other securities fraud. The agency has brought some 250 Internet enforcement cases, including one concluded in March against a flamboyant, self-proclaimed stock expert calling himself Tokyo Joe who operated an investment Web site. He agreed in a settlement to pay $429,696 in civil penalties and $324,934 in restitution of allegedly ill-gotten gains, without admitting nor denying the allegations. Last month, Walker obtained the SEC's first anti-fraud injunction in 20 years against a Big Five accounting firm, Arthur Andersen LLP. Andersen agreed to pay a $7 million civil fine to settle the SEC's allegations it issued false and misleading audit reports that inflated earnings of Waste Management Inc. [NYSE:WMI - news] by more than $1 billion. Andersen neither admitted to nor denied the allegations in its settlement. ``America's investors have benefited greatly from Dick Walker's presence at the SEC,'' Unger said in a statement. ``He has served the commission masterfully ... bringing enormous intellect, judgment and grace.'' The 1,400 or so cases directed by Walker also included: --Cases of alleged earnings manipulation and financial reporting abuses involving W.R. Grace, Livent, Cendant, McKesson HBOC, Microstrategy and Sunbeam. --Cases brought jointly by the SEC, federal prosecutors and the FBI against penny-stock fraud and organized crime involvement in the securities business and ``boiler rooms.'' --Enforcement actions against the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange and several regional exchanges for alleged failure to adequately police their markets. Walker, who was director of the SEC's Northeast regional office in New York from 1991 to 1996, hasn't yet accepted a new position and will remain at the SEC for a short transition period. Before coming to the SEC, he was a partner at the law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in New York. biz.yahoo.com

To: gold$10k who wrote (73203)	7/10/2001 5:11:29 PM
From: marek_wojna	Respond to of 116758

<<You are so right. The great thing is that nobody knows about it yet (aside from a handful of us), implying that there are a huge number of potential buyers out there.>> I hope they'll have something left. We cannot count on bankers.

To: gold$10k who wrote (73203)	7/10/2001 5:30:22 PM
From: pater tenebrarum	Respond to of 116758

i have heard that he's a pretty proficient gold futures trader, but i have followed his pieces of analysis in the public domain for quite a while, and he sure has kept his subscribers (and presumably himself) out of the nascent bull market in the gold mining stocks thus far. since he told them NOT to buy Hecla at 50 cents, or Kinross at 40 cents, or Goldfields at $2.75 , he can't be expected to tell them to buy these stocks NOW when they're trading significantly higher. not aboard, and thus in a box... i agree on the potential for more buyers. i follow trading action in the gold stocks very closely and my impression from the tape is that a good chunk of the available float is already in the hands of long term position players. at the same time, the Rydex precious metals assets (a microcosm of the public's involvement at large) recently hit an all time low - meaning the public is almost completely out of the sector. the HUI (index of unhedged gold stocks) is currently up 80% from the November low - and nobody has noticed, as you say. yet.