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

To: IngotWeTrust who wrote (29886)	3/13/1999 11:19:00 AM
From: Elsewhere	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116762

Morgy_Dog, >I see you live in Germany? >Could you give us your take on why Lafontaine resigned? Officially nobody knows the reason, he just quit. But he lost the power struggle with chancellor Schröder, and it is a relief that the German political system confronted Lafontaine with the damage of his policy to the extent that he wasn't able to bear the pressure any more. Impressive to see how the market responded - the DAX exhibited the biggest one-day gain point-wise (about #8 percentage-wise). >How successful do you think the European governments >will be in making their workers give up benefits >and work a lot harder for "productivity?" Productivity on average is high in Germany, that was a prerequisite for the economy to survive. But the necessary structural changes will take years. We continue to spend billions on old industries like mining, agriculture (latest "Agenda 2000" compromise: $50 bn/year subsidies for European farmers...) so I am afraid it will have to get worse before it gets better. Since we are on a gold thread a thought about a paradoxical effect of Lafontaine's leaving: without his pressure the ECB might feel free now to lower rates adding to the reflating momentum. ole 49r, >Since your proferred URL is only available to subscribers, >could you at least hit the high spots for the Gold Threaders >who are UNABLE to view your proferring? An excerpt: <<With the stock market high and the world economy showing signs of imbalance, supporters of gold say now is the time to offset risk by using gold as a way of both preserving wealth and diversifying more broadly. "You're dealing in probabilities and possibilities," says Richard Scott-Ram, chief portfolio strategist at the World Gold Council, a promotional body. Although any portfolio structure depends on the age and risk appetite of the investor, Mr. Scott-Ram recommends an initial investment coming to 5% of the value of the portfolio. "It's taking out insurance against the stock market coming down," he says. "Very boring but still very necessary.">> Other statements: - Douglas Cohen (Morgan Stanley Dean Witter): gold useful as insurance - Ted Arnold (Prudential-Bache Securities): underperformance vs. equities - Rhona O'Connell (T. Hoare & Co.): gold downside minimal - Hanspeter Hausheer (UBS): gold's role 55%-60% commodity, rest hedge - Allan Anderson (Edward Jones): doomsday hedge - Paul Walker (Gold Fields Mineral Services): "quite substantial" Y2K buying - Gary Mead (World Gold Council): "We think that people have prematurely written off gold" (BTW: the $49/year WSJ subscription fee is well worth it ;-).) >Curious as to what makes you widen your horizons >from darn near exclusively surfing/posting on >net stocks to an interest in gold? Posting and lurking are two different activities, and I like Grove's theme "Only the paranoid survive". >Is your interest prompted by overvaluation >concerns in your net holdings? My approach is to try to find a combination of Net and value although many people would probably deny that these terms can be juxtaposed. I like Net.B@nk (NTBK, netbank.com), for instance, in spite of its name - it's a Net-only bank (actually the largest and only profitable one) which has quadrupled its customer base during the past year yet trades at only 3x book vs. EBAY's 150 in spite of having a comparable growth rate. Netbank pays 4% for a checking account, 5.x% for money market deposits and has no "banker's hours" thanks to 24/7 Net availability. These kind of companies will contribute to billions of savings for the US economy and render it even more efficient. Just the processing of physical checks, for example, incurs costs of $180 billion/year which banks like NTBK will help to save (David Humphrey, Florida State University). >Did something pop up on your stock scanning software models? Any investor should follow the CRB, 30-years and gold daily. >Do you think you might invest in physical gold, >gold equities, gold options Not gold options. I was long ASL for some time. Best invest to all and thanks for the welcome. I'll probably be a rare poster here.