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

To: Alex who wrote (17344)	9/3/1998 10:06:00 AM
From: IngotWeTrust	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116906

Nice scoop there, ACE! Another nail N t'coffin o'the "EMU ain't gonna happen set!!"

To: Alex who wrote (17344)	9/3/1998 10:14:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116906

Oil gains on Iraq jitters, gold up on dollar 06:21 p.m Sep 03, 1998 Eastern NEW YORK, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Oil prices surged on Thursday after the chief weapons inspector for the United Nations said Iraq was continuing to obstruct U.N. surveillance efforts, raising the threat of a fresh confrontation over the issue. In other commodity markets, precious metals and grains continued to be buoyed by the weakness in the dollar. The Commodity Research Bureau index of 17 futures prices ended 2.00 points higher at 201.36, six points above the 21-year lows set earlier this week as stock markets plummeted worldwide on worries about Asia, Russia and deflation. At the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil prices shot up after Richard Butler, chief of the U.N. Special Commission handling inspections of Iraq's weaponry, said Iraq had placed new curbs this week on U.N. inspectors. ''We are doing no disarmament work,'' Butler said. Oil traders, nervous about any fresh threats of conflict in the oil-rich Middle East Gulf, pushed prices higher. Oil markets had already posted gains earlier on reports that oil shipments from Russia and Nigeria were moving slower than expected. Crude oil for delivery in October closed $1.00 higher at $14.67 a barrel, boosting oil product prices. October gasoline ended 1.91 cents higher at 42.51 cents a gallon and October heating oil 2.55 cents higher at 39.61 cents a gallon. Butler, in charge of dismantling Iraq's ballistic, chemical and biological weapons programmes, said Iraq was closing off more sites to U.N. inspectors following a declaration last month that it would no longer cooperate with the inspectors. The Security Council last month called that Iraqi position ''totally unacceptable,'' but no substantive actions have been taken. The Council last March threatened Iraq with ''severest consequences'' if it failed to comply with the disarmament agreements which date from the end of the Gulf War in 1991. Nervousness over Iraq was a background factor supporting precious metals, but the big factor continued to be weakness in the U.S. dollar. Lower dollar values strengthen foreign investment in dollar-denominated commodities like gold and also lessen incentive for overseas miners to sell ores or metal. On its trade weighted index, the U.S. dollar on Thursday had dropped to its lowest level since February. Keying off the weakness, gold for December delivery at the COMEX closed $4.90 higher at $288.30 an ounce while silver for December delivery rose 11 cents to end at $4.95 an ounce. Analysts said repositioning of big professional investors like hedge funds in major markets was a key to trade. In part, the dollar was being pushed lower by the unwinding of yen-carry trades, where traders had borrowed yen at low interest rates to buy booming U.S. dollars and higher-yielding U.S. Treasury bonds. ''The volatility in world financial markets in recent weeks has hit funds hard and many of them are moving to raise cash by closing out the few profitable positions they have left -- the yen-carry trade in interest rate markets and short positions in key commodities such as oil and gold,'' said James Steel, an analyst with commodity broker Refco Inc. in New York. Grain markets ended mostly higher, led by soybean oil, on rumours that China was once more booking cargoes from the United States. At the Chicago Board of Trade, October soyoil closed 0.50 cent a pound higher at 24.32 cents while November soybeans closed unchanged at $5.21 a bushel. Corn and wheat prices also posted gains for a second day, buoyed by talk that export demand may revive. Corn for December delivery closed 3-1/2 cents a bushel higher at $2.08 a bushel and December wheat rose 3-1/4 cents at $2.59-1/2. Wheat set a 21-year low earlier this week while corn bounced off a 10-1/2-year low. Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.