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

To: Ron Wilkinson who wrote (11973)	5/20/1998 11:16:00 PM
From: Giraffe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116823

From the Financial Times: GOLD: Koreans shake market By Kenneth Gooding Patriotic South Koreans played havoc with the gold market in the first quarter by giving 228 tonnes of the metal to their government to help pay off some of the country's debts. About 3.5m Koreans responded to the "Save the Nation" gold collection schemes after their country was caught up in the Asian economic turmoil. One quarter of all households supplied some gold - an average of 65 grams each, or just over 2 ounces - mostly in high-quality jewellery. Indonesians also added to the gold market's woes by selling a net 64 tonnes, sometimes to buy necessities after the value of their domestic currency collapsed. Others were tempted to take profits as the domestic price of gold soared. Indonesian jewellers were also hastily cutting back stocks. The unprecedented sales in the two countries cut gold demand in the first quarter by 55 per cent to 342.1 tonnes or 11m troy ounces, according to the World Gold Council, a promotional organisation financed by some big producers. The Council, which monitors 21 countries accounting for about 80 per cent of global demand, said it was the first significant fall in gold consumption since it launched its survey in 1992. George Milling-Stanley, the Council's manager of gold market analysis, said the once in a lifetime Korean scheme ended in March and the trends were positive for gold again. In the first quarter, India re-emphasised its role as the world's biggest gold consuming nation, taking a record 190.7 tonnes, 17 per cent above the total for the same months of 1997. Mr Milling-Stanley said sales were boosted by the government's further deregulation of the gold market and a smaller price premium in India compared with the international dollar price. There were also record quarterly gold sales in the US, where they were up by 10 per cent to 88.1 tonnes. Jewellery sales surged in tandem with the US economy, and gold coin purchases jumped by 66 per cent, as some investors saw them as a good bet when the gold price in dollar terms fell to an 18«-year low.

To: Ron Wilkinson who wrote (11973)	5/20/1998 11:19:00 PM
From: Giraffe	Respond to of 116823

And this from FT re. silver: SILVER: High price dries up Indian demand By Kenneth Gooding, Mining Correspondent As Warren Buffett, the prominent US investor, was acquiring 4,000 tonnes of silver last year, millions of Indians, the world's biggest consumers of the metal, stopped buying. This is made clear in the latest market survey from the Washington-based Silver Institute. When the silver price rose sharply towards the end of 1997, reflecting the buying activities of Mr Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway investment group, imports to India virtually dried up. In India, most silver is bought by farmers in the north who stock pile the metal as a form of saving. They do not look at the dollar price but at the cost in their domestic currency. "At present, they buy when the price falls below Rs7,000 and stop buying when silver goes above Rs8,000," said Stewart Murray, managing director of Gold Fields Mineral Services, the consultancy that compiled the survey. When the price of silver was languishing in the first half of last year - hitting a four-year low of $4.22 a troy ounce in mid July - India's bullion imports were "phenomenal". As the price increased, to touch a nine-year high of $6.27 in late December, imports fell to virtually nothing. Mr Murray said the Indian silver "buyers' strike" was also partly a reaction to the unprecedented level of imports in the record second quarter and partly because the price of gold, also favoured in India for savings, was falling. Mr Buffett was attracted to silver by the low price, but he was also influenced by the way demand had exceeded conventional supply - from mines and scrap - for many years. In 1997, the "statistical deficit" was 130m ounces or 4,031 tonnes. Between 1990 and 1997, cumulative silver fabrication demand exceeded mine supply by 2,226m ounces. The gap has been filled by recycled silver scrap, almost entirely from the photographic industry, and more than 1,084m ounces from silver stocks - 700m from identifiable bullion stocks and the balance from private holdings. Mr Murray suggested the "statistical deficit" would continue for some years and the key question was whether the price had moved enough to bring the market into balance. He said Indian silver imports had picked up again in March but were still relatively low. With silver back yesterday at $5.28 an ounce, it seems that, for the time being, Mr Buffett and others who bet on a higher silver price are not doing well in their battle with the Indians. World Silver Survey 1998 from the Silver Institute, 1112 16th Street, N.W., Suite 240, Washington, DC 20036, US: $70 or œ45.