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

To: Enigma who wrote (97039)	1/16/2004 7:06:55 AM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116762

Does this chart say he was right or wrong? stockcharts.com

To: Enigma who wrote (97039)	1/17/2004 3:05:11 AM
From: CIMA	Respond to of 116762

Bullion Drop Stirs Debate on Insider Stock Sales 2004-01-16 14:18:54 EST By Nicole Mordant VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - The swift pullback in bullion prices and gold-mining stocks this week rattled investors and left some analysts wondering why a big pre-Christmas gold-stock sale by two industry veterans did not set off more alarm bells. Edgy about gold's next move amid a lull in a 35-month rally, analysts are asking if the market should have followed the lead of Goldcorp Inc. chairman Rob McEwen and Newmont Mining Corp. president Pierre Lassonde, who both cashed in piles of own-company stock in December. "Lassonde and McEwen sold out pretty close to the top (of the gold price). The writing was on the wall that gold was pretty full," said a New York-based gold analyst. Since touching 15-year highs of $430.50 last week, bullion has dropped 5 percent, hammered by a stronger U.S. dollar, which makes the dollar-priced commodity more expensive to buy in other currencies. Gold shares fell as they tracked the gold price, which was last bid on Friday at $406.20 an ounce. Newmont, up 67 percent in 2003, slid 11 percent this week to $43.14. Barrick Gold Corp. fell 6 percent to C$26.96. On Dec. 16, McEwen, founder and head of what is regarded as one of the world's more innovative gold companies, sold 39 percent of his Goldcorp stock for about $28 million. Two days later, Lassonde, who has a reputation as something of a gold market sage, offloaded 12 percent of his stock in the world's biggest gold producer, which was held in a family trust. "From a perception point of view it certainly doesn't help," said Doug Pollitt of stock broker Pollitt and Co. in Toronto. "But I know they both remain bullish on the sector and their companies. I'm not sure their personal decisions have any bearing on their outlook," he said. Both McEwen and Lassonde, the latter through a spokesman, said the sales were for personal financial reasons. Both said they remain substantial shareholders in their respective companies. Since the 1950s, researchers have studied how predictive insider stock purchases and sales are of price direction. Starting from the premise that a top company official will on average be better informed about the firm and its industry than the average outside investor, analysts try to develop profitable trading strategies based on copying insider stock purchases and sales. But evidence is mixed on whether these strategies work, and they can be tough and expensive to implement. "As we have seen with insider sales in the tech sector, stock sales don't necessarily have any predictive value," Pollitt said. Despite nervousness over its short-term prospects, bullion is widely expected to continue higher over the longer term, building on a 65 percent surge since February 2001. GFMS, a respected London-based commodity research group, forecast on Thursday that bullion could touch $450 an ounce by July and average $437 an ounce in the first half of 2004. ($1=$1.30 Canadian)