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

To: Alex who wrote (77454)	9/26/2001 8:41:14 AM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 116845

OT The Bastard Shorts were only trying to soil the image of gold & the gold markets with their rumors: Monday September 24 8:07 AM ET No Signs of Dubious Deals in Gold By Sharman Esarey LONDON (Reuters) - Gold market analysts see no evidence of dubious dealings in bullion linked to the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, but some refused to rule out the possibility of such activity. ``I can't remember a quieter period than the week to September 11,'' said Andy Smith, analyst at Mitsui Bussan Global Precious Metals. ``There was absolutely no evidence of any life in gold.'' At a weekend meeting of European Finance Ministers, Bundesbank President Ernst Welteke said that in addition to strange movements in airline and insurance shares there were signs of suspicious dealings in gold and oil. Authorities across world financial markets are probing reports that people linked to the attacks took market positions in advance to profit from expected falls in shares in airlines, insurers and banks. World stock markets plunged after the attacks, with airline and insurance stocks particularly hard hit. But gold market analysts largely played down the idea that gold was a vehicle for profiteering, given the apparent normality of market activity in the days before the attack. ``I doubt it....prices didn't behave strangely before September 11 and after that the market was pretty steady,'' another bullion analyst said. Gold was trading at around $271 an ounce immediately before the attacks and has since climbed to around $290. President Bush (news - web sites) says Saudi-born Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), who is estimated to be worth as much as $300 million, is the prime suspect in the attacks. Experts say bin Laden or his associates may be capable of sophisticated financial speculation, but some doubt whether he could have pulled it off. Welteke said there were ``ever clearer signs that there were activities on international financial markets which must have been carried out with the necessary expert knowledge'' and that gold markets had seen movements ``which need explaining.'' But analysts saw no unusual price moves before the attacks. Nor had they seen a pick-up in volumes or extra activity in options, which are a cheaper way to take bets on future price swings, or in lending rates, which would likely rise on a sudden jump in demand for gold. ``If you work back from the price, the options..., the lease rates and the volumes were normal,'' Smith said. Nor had there been talk of odd deals in the tightly knit market, where such speculation might normally spread quickly. ``I certainly didn't pick up anything from talking to traders last week. It surprises me that gold should be cited, it's such a discreet market that I don't see how he could know about any deals like this,'' another analyst said. But one gold analyst warned against a hasty dismissal of the suggestions of suspicious dealing. He said such deals might have happened and the wide-ranging probe could now be delivering relevant data on bank accounts and records. ``It is possible for it to happen -- people would act through the banks and have various accounts, so it would be anonymous transactions almost,'' he said. ``As the authorities are now investigating the attacks and bin Laden, they will have access to bank accounts and records, so it is possible for Welteke to be aware of what had been going on.'' dailynews.yahoo.com