Gold Editorials & Commentary

Palladium is in profound shortage, and Stillwater (SWC) under $20 a share here presents an extraordinary opportunity to buy into one of the great palladium deposits in the world that has yet to be noticed by The Hive.

February 29, 2000

To: Gregory Zuckerman

      John Conner

      Charles Casparino

      Wall Street Journal

      New York, New York

It's said we are separated from the rich, the powerful and the famous by a chain of no more than six friends of friends.

Thursday’s Wall Street Journal was filled with articles about how risky the stock market is and about how Alan Greenspan is stubbornly holding onto his desire to gently prick what he perceives as a stock market bubble.

"Risky debt may cause trouble for U.S. banks". That was the title of a front page article in this past Wednesday's "Financial Times." The article was based on a report by Wolfgang Hammes, a senior manager at McKinsey, a management consulting firm. Mr.

We're not on the edge of instability . . . and "there's no reason to slam on the brakes"; so said a beleaguered Fed Chairman, to the Phase II Humphrey Hawkins testimony in the U.S. Senate. This the Fed Chairman just blink?

The rapid pace of developments in the gold market prompts this summary of key milestones and their status:

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan didn't think there was need to worry about bank safety during the Y2K event.

This market may be frustrating and plenty difficult to trade, but it's easy enough to hate. The rallies look like hell, breadth has been shrieking "disaster!!!!" for months, and key bellwethers like Microsoft and Dell look like they've just about had it.

A question that I was asked quite often recently is why rational people should purchase stocks that are vastly overpriced by all conventional measures of value and probably with more than just an inkling that the market is in a bubble.

Final Part

Birth of the Euro

Inversion strategies. .

It was a particularly unsettled and ominous week for the financial markets.

The price of gold exploded on Friday (02/04/00) when Placer Dome announced that it was planning to stop its hedging program.

The final market top we have all been waiting for has arrived. The great millennial bear market, which remained elusive in scope and timing, is about to ravage investors with gut-wrenching violence. Is this a certainty?

[Note: The following is of a multi-part installment examining the debt phenomenon, based on the book,"A World in Debt," by Freeman Tilden.]

Upward price behavior ahead of the FOMC decision . .

“ [It] has helped to create a vast new audience of a magnitude which was never dreamed of… This audience, invisible but attentive, differs not only in size but in kind from any audience the world has ever known.

Gold is poised to make its second significant move to the upside in less than a year.

It was a bearish week on Wall Street as dislocations developed in the credit market and the stock market faltered. For the week, the Dow and S&P500 dropped 3%.

We turn our attention now to an examination of the long-term outlook for gold prices. This is a subject of great importance since it concerns not only many of our favored investments, but more importantly, the state of health of the world economy itself.

Background

Four features that can be used to distinguish a bubble, were discussed in Parts 1 and Part 2. These are:

A defensive market was the call . . . again for Wednesday action, and we weren't disappointed in the outcome.

Stock market action has been particularly choppy and disjointed, not atypical for option expiration week.

A little break in the Dow Industrials . .

At no other time in history has the supposedly almighty dollar been easier to come by.

Overview

Bonds – nearing an intermediate-term low.

Stocks – nearing a major top. A severe correction is likely to commence very soon.

The gold market has just completed the trough phase of its latest cycle and is due for a rise in the coming days, based on our cycle analysis.

A "Coming of Age" . . by the Internet, likely summarizes much of what the Street is fearing now, as suggested immediately here in the wake of the largest "new & old media" merger Monday.