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

To: Zardoz who wrote (28501)	2/17/1999 5:49:00 PM
From: Lucretius	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116764

HO HO HO kiddo, I think you are about to lose alot of money if you bet on those positions. good luck. -Lucretius

To: Zardoz who wrote (28501)	2/17/1999 5:50:00 PM
From: Enigma	Respond to of 116764

Hutch - I'll pass over (until the end of this message) your usual arrogance on your last posting and draw your attention to this posting from the currency thread: Commodities -- what crash? By Stephen Wyatt The Commodity Research Bureau (CRB) index of US commodity prices fell to fresh 21-year lows on Friday. Commodity markets have crashed, right? Wrong. In US dollar terms they sure have. But in an array of other currencies commodity markets are soaring. In Australian dollar terms, commodity prices measured by the CRB index hit their highest level for 14 years late last month; very different to the 21-year low in $US terms. The $A CRB today is almost double the level it was back in 1977. And check out commodity prices in rupiah, won, baht, rupees and rubles if you really want to find some bull markets. It's easily explained by the steady erosion of the $A against the $US over that period. The $A fell from about US$1.50 in 1974 to a record low of US55.30¢ in August last year, before recovering to around US65¢ today. This is a dramatic realignment of currency values, with the $A losing 65 per cent of its value over the past 25 years. Clearly this fall in the currency far outweighed the weakness in $US commodity prices. This is what a floating currency is meant to do. The floating $A since 1983 has kept the Australian export sector alive in times of plummeting global commodity markets. It is now providing about a 40 per cent price advantage to Australian exporters relative to their US competitors. Each individual commodity tells its own story, however. Despite gold falling to its lowest level in 18 years last year, gold in $A hit a two-year high of over A$500/oz. This is four times as high as $A gold was in 1977. Gold in $US though, over that long 22-year period was also up, but only doubled in price. The base metals tell a similar story. Australia's most important base metal export, aluminium (and alumina), was up marginally in $A/tonne terms from its 1983 levels. But in $US terms aluminium prices had fallen by 30 per cent. Wheat and other grains are up in $A and down in $US. In $US terms Chicago wheat futures fell 17 per cent since early 1983, but rose by 30 per cent in $A terms. The glaring exception has been the wool market. In $US wool (21 micron) is just above its lowest price for 23 years of US$3/kg. Its crash from US$13/kg in 1988 to US$3.11 Friday - a fall of almost 80 per cent - far outweighed the weakness in the $A. Wool in $A terms fell from A$17/kg to about A$4.80/kg since 1988 - a fall of about 70 per cent. ___________________________________________________ I notice you point to a recent small gain in the Can and Oz currencies and try to claim that they did so in spite of 'limited gold holdings' You can't have it both ways - these currencies have plummeted over recent years and who'se to say it isn't because of those same limited gold holdings?. As for you contention about the Euro and it's gold holding you try to have this one both ways too - the US reserves contain a hight gold holding too - is the $US up because of its gold holdings then?? You're an interesting contributor to this thread at times - but cannot resist the childish impulse to say, over and over, "I told you so" dd