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To: Gut Trader who wrote (271381)	12/18/2003 5:38:55 PM
From: orkrious	Respond to of 436258

from lemetropole As we close in on the end of another year's trading, I spent a while this morning going back over some of the numbers from our current gold bull market as compared with the Big One in the late seventies and into early 1980. I wondered whether we've come "too far too fast," as some of the gold skeptics claim. What I discovered is truly enlightening, I think. Going back to the year 1976 when gold reached the bottom of its cycle in August at $103.50 (London PM fix), I found that from then on through the end of the year gold put in new highs 16.85% of the time. In other words, if you theoretically took a hundred trading days, gold would be making new highs at a rate of about 17 days out of the hundred. (Keep in mind that these highs always come in spurts. The market may go four or five months, for example, without making a new high, but then, suddenly, you'll have a couple of months when it makes new highs several times each week.) In 1977, for the entire trading year, gold made new highs at a much slower rate of 9.96%, or about one trading day out of every ten. In 1978, the new-high rate was up to 14.68%, or about 15 days of every hundred. In 1979, the year before the mighty blowoff top, the new-high rate was a stellar 22.4%. Gold was now making a new high, on average, at a rate slightly more than one trading day out of every five. In the first two weeks of January 1980 when things were coming to a head, gold was making new highs at a stunning 50% clip — on average, that's a new high every other day! (When we finally see that happening in our own market, it'll probably be time to rush for the exits.) So, how do we compare in our young metals bull market today? Well, if we go back to April 2001 when gold bottomed at $255.95 (again, London PM fix) we find that for the rest of that year, gold made new highs at a rate of 8.0%. Nothing to write home about, that's for sure. In 2002, the new-high rate was even more pathetic, falling 25% from the 2001 level to a puny rate of only 6.0%. What about this year? So far, with less than two weeks to go, gold has managed to put in new highs at a rate of 9.87% for the year, not quite once every ten trading days. In other words, in our best year to date in this developing gold bull market, gold hasn't even performed as well as it did in its very worst year back in the mid-to-late seventies bull market. And yet, many mining stocks have experienced gains in the hundreds of percent range! Can you imagine what's going to happen when this young bull finally shakes off its 22-year slumber and comes to life for real? I believe it's going to make that seventies bull look like a haggard old dairy farm heifer. To those who claim that this gold market is getting tired, all I can say is, you haven't got a clue!