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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mishedlo who wrote (27864)	4/19/2005 2:23:37 PM
From: Chispas	Respond to of 116555

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Will a new gold coin make a mint for the U.S. Mint? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On Tuesday, officials in Washington announced the planned introduction of the first 24-karat gold coin in the nation's history. The piece, set to be rolled out sometime in 2006, will boast a 99.99 percent "fineness" rating. In other words, it's almost perfectly pure gold. When the Mint releases a coin into general circulation, such as the recently introduced five-cent piece, the purpose is simply to provide a medium for transactions -- a few nickels to rub together, as it were. The new gold coins are different. They won't enter into general circulation, but will be sold instead to investors and collectors. The purpose of rolling them out, the Mint is making clear, is to make money -- perhaps a lot of it. "The United States Mint intends to match and exceed world class business practices with this new 24-karat gold bullion coin," said Henrietta Holsman Fore, director of the U.S. Mint, in a statement. "There is a demand, both here and abroad, for 24-karat gold coins," she said. "We want to meet this demand by providing the highest quality and most beautiful coins in the world." According to the Mint, the global market for 24-karat bullion coins is $2.4 billion. It's clear that the government is responding to competitive pressure. As much as 60 percent of investor-grade gold coins sold internationally last year were 24-karat, with Canada's Maple Leaf piece one of the most popular. Until now, the highest grade U.S. coins have been the 22-karat American Eagle series, first introduced in the 1980s after Congress banned the sale of South African Kruggerands to protest apartheid. The Mint claims that the American Eagle accounts for 95 percent of all gold coin sales in the United States. But on the much larger international market, 24-karat pieces are more popular. Washington found itself without an entry in the field. Although they carry nominal face values, gold coins minted for investors and collectors sell immediately at prices based on the commodities market, where gold prices are currently more than $425 an ounce. The coins will be literally worth their weight in gold. "The program will have two phases," the Mint's statement noted, "starting with an investor-grade uncirculated 24-karat gold bullion coin, followed by a 24-karat numismatic collector proof coin." No specific designs or denominations for the new coin have been announced. The Treasury Department will undergo a period of public review before releasing those details later this spring. -------------------- money.cnn.com

To: mishedlo who wrote (27864)	4/19/2005 3:00:28 PM
From: Tommaso	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Sugar has been mulling near its present pricing lows for perhaps the last 10 years. Even a doubling of current prices would still represent pricing 3 times less than the peak price periods experienced in the 1970s. There are other interesting aspects to sugar pricing that can be seen in the sugar pricing chart below. Note that during periods of time when the U.S. dollar depreciated (from 1985 for a few years thereafter) or when fuel prices increased dramatically (from the energy crisis in 1973-74) or when commodity prices in general rose higher (periods of the 1970s through 1980 and around 1994-95), sugar prices escalated dramatically. The current environment now in many ways can be characterized by some combination of all of these factors. It is also interesting to note that corn and sugar prices can soar to very high prices, even as the global economy goes into a recession – for example, from the 1968-69 to 1973-74 period, corn went up 295% and sugar went up 1290%. Therefore it is not impossible to conceive of a similar scenario playing out potentially in the near future, should the global economy slip into recession. etc etc financialsense.com