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

To: Mark Bartlett who wrote (3182)	11/15/1997 7:36:00 PM
From: William Peavey	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116817

It seems many have picked up on this snippet of news, but I have seen no commentary... Does this suggest malice or incompetence? Has Swiss Bank Corp been purposely falsifying metal inventories? Who discovered this shortfall? Does the Comex or some government agency audit these numbers and physical stocks? How many warehouses are there? And best question of all: Could We Have a Conspiracy Here? I certainly don't know, but I do have an enquiring mind. Bill Peavey

To: Mark Bartlett who wrote (3182)	11/16/1997 3:45:00 AM
From: Abner Hosmer	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 116817

Mark - I've seen this posted at a number of sites on the web, and I think that it's significance has been misunderstood and overestimated. If anyone on the thread uses AOL and has access to the 30 day archive of Reuters, PR Newswire, and Business Wire, they could probably search and post Fridays report of Comex Warehouse stocks. These usually list the amount of gold stored and deliverable from each licensed depository individually. I'm sure Swiss Bank Corp is simply one of a number of these, and as the story suggests, their inventory has not disappeared, but in the process of being transferred to Republic National Bank, some of it was mistakenly reported twice, resulting in an extra 31,588 oz being reported. This is an amount equvalent to only 310 contracts, miniscule in the scheme of things, and there is nothing to suggest that there is a shortage of deliverables. Total Comex warehouse stocks seem to typically be just a small fraction of open interest. The report has now been corrected, and I'd be surprised if it had any effect on the market. Tom