Gold Editorials & Commentary

Life is just a bowl of pits. Rodney Dangerfield

September 12, 1998 05:06 GMT -- The long-awaited report from Independent Council Kenneth Starr is finally out, and the U.S. stock market didn't seem to care.

We wrote last week of the high potential for a crash on Wall Street, basing our argument on the confluence of cyclical and geo-harmonic patterns that were to have occurred during the week.

Monetary Realists--both of us--are like the little boy in the story of the Emperor's new clothes. Untrained in economics, we do not know what we are supposed to see; and we have escaped the indoctrination, a.k.a.

Greg Mastel is a member of the Washington think-tank Economic Strategy Institute.

I was preparing a column about CNBC last week when the following message arrived via e-mail from my friend and colleague, Michael Belkin:

"Belkin on CNBC Bubblevision? Today at 3:40 EST? How'd that happen?"

The bear market has unfolded almost exactly to our parameters over the past couple of weeks. We are now fully convinced—from a technical perspective—that the trend is indeed bearish with the bull all but dead.

For short-term gold investors, last week was not an enjoyable one. For it was during that time that gold's long-term technical support at $285/oz. gave way in a deflationary shock wave that saw the CRB commodity index break below its critical $200 support.

The long-awaited bear market has finally arrived. While not making its presence known in singular fashion as we might have expected, it nonetheless has given us every indication that it has wandered into the U.S.

Among life's few certainties is the passage of time. The year 2000 is coming, ready or not. Indeed, it is almost upon us. And equally as certain is that it will cause some degree of disruption in computer programs that require a date to function properly.

Exactly sixteen years ago, with the Dow Industrial Average wallowing in the doldrums near 800, Elliott Wave theorist Robert S. Prechter tweaked Wall Street's imagination with his prediction that the most spectacular bull market in history was about to begin.

Most people do not wish to be alarmist, nor do they wish us to be alarmist. Yet, sometimes the reality of a situation sounds alarmist.

The tug-of-war continues, and the bulls are beginning to lose their grip in their battle with the now-dominant bears, a group of investors who are slowly emerging in their newfound role as vanguards of the U.S. stock market.

Many gold market observers and participants have marveled at the gold price action over the last few years, feeling it has defied any rational explanation. That feeling is easy to understand when the facts are observed in historical perspective.

A Simple Explanation of "The Coming Currency Crisis" Worldwide

The deterioration of the ruble is generating a lot of solicited and unsolicited advice. Much of it concerns devaluation, which the Russians are, so far, resisting.

We believe gold has reached a critical major support level and its action over the next one-to-two weeks will determine whether it will break firmly beneath this level or rise to short-term highs.

While Wall Street wonders whether these past few weeks signal the end of the stock market bubble, a more important question for Main Street is, "Is the economic bubble ready to burst, as well?" This bubble is the result of America's new found limitless ability

The Dow Jones Industrials finished the session for Thursday, Aug. 13 at 8459, down almost 94 points from the previous day's session. This pushes the Dow below its 200-period moving average--a very bearish indicator.

The gold market continued bearish last week as the yellow metal resumed its downward trend after a one-day price spike on Aug. 4.

The bear market arrived in emphatic fashion on Tuesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) falling 300 points to DJ 8487, a six-week low. Previously, the Dow had fallen nearly 550 points over a less than two week period.

We stand, as on the bow of great ship Titanic, enroute to a millennium checkmate and secular crescendo unprecedented in human history, since the attempted construction of the Tower of Babel.

We wrote in our commentary last Thursday that the "bear market has arrived" and that the new trend in the U.S. stock market was now the "friend" of all bears. Today's market action (Aug.

You cannot create a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs. Yet by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can create a crowd of men. Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson

For long-time bears, the U.S. stock market's long and arduous ride to historic highs has been nothing short of frustrating.

To:          Chairman Alan Greenspan

Date:       July 27, 1998

From:      Jude Wanniski

Ref:         THINK AGAIN

I suppose that the person who coined the aphorism "The pen is mightier than the sword" did so from behind the safety of a desk. The men in the front lines of battle would prefer machine-guns to ball-points.

Bull Market Dead!  When you look at how the last Bull market ended (and compare it to what is transpiring today), you get an odd feeling. You'll see what a peculiar week this was.

A house that would barely qualify as a tool shed in some neighborhoods recently sold for $472,000 in Palo Alto.