Ted Kopple asked Peter Lynch , Why did the market go up today?
He stated" well some times the market is not rational."

Great statement Peter!!

HighRiser: I see your point. And I agree that there is no conspiracy. Still gold ain't looking too good as protection against this problem.

Jmark -- RJ posted last night that he had covered his gold shorts, but I believe he is not going long yet. I've been in and out of the gold a couple times in the past 3 days. Basically been out of silver for a few days, waiting on an 'indication' that seems to have 'arrived' today. Unfortunately, it had come and gone while my net services wern't functioning at all well ( and sometimes not at all ) ! Now it may take one shorter bounce down before making headway ( or not ) . Kinda what I'm currently looking for to get back in. Maximize 'dem pennies, and gain a semblance of confirmation, so-to-speak. SO I'm currently flat on the metals. Got to watch HOW they perform! But also remember how these are performing relative to the paper 'happenings' these days. NOT particularly good. Not saying things can't change in quick order, 'cause they do, but you have to keep things in perspective as well as you can. I tend to think of this washout in gold as the end of it. Now, is it ALL over? I don't know, and neither does anyone else, except Hepcat.
I don't know what your trading strategy is, so it would be difficult to advise. Perhaps my previous posting might help. Short term, just watch how they treat their respective short term support/resistance areas and short term trend lines. Those should help as a simple but effective guide. Same in stocks. Remember though, IF you are into the stock scene, They can and do tank along with the rest of the stock markets ( as we just saw ) UNLESS gold and silver are doing some GOOD movements up. Then they'll at least hold there own, depending on what you ARE holding. I'm sure a number of others here can provide some very fine information too. Let's ask them to participate.

The flow back into the market was most interesting today. I had a call from a mutual fund salesman who had been contacting all her clients today extolling this as a wonderful buying opportunity. I suspect that was going on all over. These brokers are not wanting to have to explain huge losses to their clients so they are perpetuating the shell game by getting others to invest and thus holding up the illusion of prosperity and protecting their reputations with their clients. Almost to a man, or woman for that matter, the persons interviewed after the big drop expressed optimism, but the tic under the eye as they unravelled their lies was pretty self-explanatory. Night all.

The flow back into the market was most interesting today. I had a call from a mutual fund salesman who had been contacting all her clients today extolling this as a wonderful buying opportunity. I suspect that was going on all over. These brokers are not wanting to have to explain huge losses to their clients so they are perpetuating the shell game by getting others to invest and thus holding up the illusion of prosperity and protecting their reputations with their clients. Almost to a man, or woman for that matter, the persons interviewed after the big drop expressed optimism, but the tic under the eye as they unravelled their lies was pretty self-explanatory. Night all.

Some of you really beleive that gold has no role anymore. Welcome to the real world where anything goes. Tables are turning and right now you feel safe but one morning you will wake up to a new world in great unrest. And the day may come when gold can't be had or be found anywhere and then might you be sorry. Hedge your bets now otherwise you wait too long.

Goldfinger, JTF -- I DON'T do stocks!!! Outside of having physical IN possession, among a lot of other things, I play the futures.

JMark -- I think you would definitely sleep well If you simply put some proportion of you assets into the purchase of pyhsical metals. I know for a FACT that I do! 'Junk' silver, gold coins, platinum coins; whatever. Just bury it and ( almost ) forget it. It'll be there for you should you need it or just want to take a profit at some point. Pretty much 'brainless' and no bother! That, I think, is by far the best way to go.

Jmark: I'm still short gold---nervously so. Gold has yet to show that it can react positively to news.I had a good day today in the spoos market, but I am holding nothing overnite. The last few days have NOT been bullish for equities, IMO. Todays low will be retested. Best guess is that we are entering a trading range that should last the rest of the year. Watch the internals during the rallies. 50 or more new lows for several days running while prices rally would be a ringing bell. Good trading. Gone.

Eldo, at least your hedging your bets. Way to go. Everyone thinks their safe when they lock and close their doors at night. As time passes the world is becoming more uncertain all the time. We must stay on our toes in order to survive and maintain our savings. If we don't do it, whos going to do it for us. The tooth fairy has'nt been by here lately.

In scanning the posts, it seems a lot of posters think it was a non-crash. I think its too early to tell. We need to watch the adv/dec ratio. Crashes don't happen in a sigle day. Remember that that after a the market crashed on Oct. 29, 1929, it had a huge rally the following day regaining most of its losses.

Be sure and read *Contrarian View*, update today.
http://fennel.assumption.edu/view/warmline.htm

Yellow Jacket -- Remember the negative premium we saw in gold a couple days ago when gold collapsed? Then you saw how it reversed the same night! ANYTIME I've ever seen negative premium, I've seen reversals very soon thereafter! The futures should always be higher, and 'something' will adjust to make it so! Of course, know that a futures market is based upon the underlying cash market. Cash moves, then futures move. Cash stops moving south and futures keep going; then reversal time. Futures stop moving north but cash overtakes; reversal time. The best way to follow this activity is to subtract the 'normal' premium from the futures and then track the two side by side. Let me know what YOU find. ( the normal premium is time based and lessens as expiration comes nearer )

Panda / Speed
That Op ed piece posted last night from WSJ reads to me like a plea for a World Currency.. anyone??

AG is not planning the NEW WORLD ORDER SPEACH tommorrow is he? Noo Money for a Noo order...... NAAAH, It'll wait for a while... SuperGoldMan 

Tort It was significant to me that you posted your dead seagull joke after my dying albatross metaphor, thank you.

Beware, CAVE CANEM this is not *like* anything that has ever hapenned before, trying to make correlations, there are not enough datum points, THERE ARE NO RULES, just birds on the wing.


"Financial Panics are scientifically created"

Congressman Charles Linbergh of Minnesota 1920.


aurator

Worshipping Bacchus, awaiting the muse...

It has'nt done anything in 18 years and it's oversold. No one has to guess whats about to happen because no one has bought gold in a very long time. Goldbugs have been strangled and been sold out and all thats left now is buyers. When the world really hits the skids for real, gold supply will dry up overnight Thats good enough fundamentals for me. I'll keep the treasure chest, you guys can keep the pulp.

VRONSKY- read the Inger letter from last week, as per your recommendations here, but he states that gold is not the vehicle
to be in, in a down market like the one we're in.
If this is the case what is your opinion, and those of others.
If our own gurus, prescribed by you, say don't be in gold, WELL!!??

Stout resistance in the DOW at 7600... KEY REVERSALS in all the debt instruments yesterday, 10/28/97. ( Bonds repulsed at Key 118 level, basis the front futures month ) ... Anybody look at the dollar lately? See- http://www.digisys.net/futures/chart/fstwin15.gif
It looks pretty nasty for the $h!tback, which, when it crumbles, could be the final "go" signal for which the metals have been waiting.

oldman -- Good to hear from you again. You should make it a daily occurance. I was amused by one thing you had said over at AVID one day. " I used to have a fortune in gold coins. Now I have gold coins.". Poignant! However, I'm sure you have a point in price & activity' that essentially says 'buy'. Perhaps even just particular events occurring. Keep in touch with us over here. Input is desirable! Thanks.

Thanks. The Internet is pure democracy in action. Before the Internet small investors had a more expensive process to gather sufficient proxy votes to fight bad management. Now I can post a newsrelease for "cheated" investors and create a web site in no time and within mintues over a dozen ripped-off nvestors have sent me email.

The news media will likely broadcast my complaints in due course - I already did an interview with a Globe and Mail reporter earlier this evening and when I engage the lawyers a formal game plan will be in place for the "silent majority" to be rewarded for the risk and hard cash they invested to develop the Cerro Casale and related Aderban properties.

I indicated a few months ago that some gold management are ripping off shareholders with schemes to enhance and entrench their executive positions and salaries at the expense of shareholders equity during a difficult gold market. The Bema-Placer-AZS fiasco is a classic example of bad management leading investors down a garden path only to end up mugged in broad daylight during the worst market days in the last decade.

Keep posted to http://www.dimeinc.com/azs.htm and watch how small investors in AZS ( and BGO ) wake-up to the reality that we were all mislead and misguided by Clive Jonhson and his Vancouver promotion machine all along the long and difficult path.

Cheers.

Crystal Ball -- Dollar? Looks to me like it's ready to make some kind of run up, short term. It's at support. BUT, should it break below 94, THEN....!

Thanks DJ...You saved this old guy from everlasting wandering.

Off to think ....

Thanks Again ....

TTFN

Aussies close market for 15 minutes at 3.30pm
to clear a paper jam.

Time for some shuteye! BBL.

God I hate the internet when I can't get my data and can't get into Kitco.
Boy have I been whip sawed but positions still intact and holding for what is about to happen.

IN MY HUMBLE OPINION
Anyone who is now buying this market is about to get their hearts ripped out, shredded and stomped into the ground. Pronto!!!!
My computer has been in chaos last two days and slowly trying to get it make together.
The data I have been missing has now come home and I will post a couple of charts shortly when I get a couple of problems sorted out.
These charts show that this is going to be the greatest bull trap ever.
I currently hold no shares in anything at all, I only have puts, calls placed with no stops at all. Sounds stupid but how many people have just been whipsawed and positions have been trashed.
I am actually looking to get out of my Gold stock call positions on this rally.
The move that we have just seen is shortly to be magnified ten fold and we will shortly see a massive and I mean massive collapse in all equities.
The internals seen within yesterdays moves were positively sick and was not the true direction of the market. There was massive intervention.
Go and have a look at the biggest mkt caps within OEX & DOW in 5 min charts. When the market was artificially propped yesterday there was massive fluctuations within these companies. Prem spiked at 30. Average normally around 6 to 8. The powers who be spent a great deal of resources to pull off this stunt. The trend is down and if they didn't support the market yesterday would have been savage-down. The fundamentals have not changed, we are in a down trend and will continue. We saw how much fear has been on the streets the last few days, and now do you really think all is well. No way - the problems globally are still there. When the masses realise that they have been hoodwinked into believing all is well again, you just watch them come back and sell this baby down. The ammount of fear seen already will escalate 10 fold. Have a look at the volumes on the Nasdaq & NYSE - massive, and in a market that has turned into a downtrend, these are ominous. Remember yesterday was propped. These volumes will look small when the real selling takes place.
The dow now has to test resistance on its tripple bottom base put in last month. If it were to break that tonight with another 500pt move what do you think AG will do. He stopped the last blow-up on the 8th.
He has now propped it yesterday. If he has to stomp on this market to stop it going to 10k again, the market will go berserk. He truly now is between a rock and a hard place.
The market wants to go down and the masses want to get out. Suddenly the crash is over ( even though the fundamentals that cause the problem haven't changed ) people get a false sense of security and think it's safe to play again. The next bit of bad news or AG capping this rise will truly have a downward slant to the market players and they will all head to the door in a truly unbelievable fashion.
It would not surprise me to see volumes doubling on yesterdays although I doubt that the systems in place could handle the load. Yesterdays volumes clogged up the sytsems hugely 2hr + fills.

I would be very cautious about holding any stocksat all, gold included over the next downdraft.

What I am seeing makes me think that a 30% correction is not in the cards at all nor a 50% correction.
When true fear enters these markets I feel that we are going to be swamped into a 60% to 70% tank.

Sorry to feel so worried and probably to transfer some of my worries to you, but this is what the charts are telling me.

That was not the real Tsunami but just a precursor to what is about to come. The very nature of the response to that wave is what brings me to believe that the real wave to follow is not going to be 400' high but 1200' ft high.
Lets say I just smell this and feel this.
Think very carefully about what I've just said, read 3 times then put your own analysis and feelings into play.

I shall return shortly with the charts to justify my position.
As always IMHO.

Nick: Thank you for your post. I agree totally, and I respect your opinion; It is one backed up with good research and data as exhibited by your charts.

Kitcon is quiet because the markets are up and we are tired. Sold @ DOW ~7800 have no regrets at all. Bought physical in 323~327 range. No regrets at all. Its there. Its real. Hope you all bought physical when you could get it.

The bullion markets ( commercial ) will be feeling the surge in private investment demand in coins. Reported here that COMEX had 62,000+ once withdrawls today. This is 2x the prior two days 32,000+ ( each ) rate which was about 10x the typical recent draw down rate ( if memory serves ) . I am most interested in seeing these COMEX withdrawl numbers on a daily basis as I believe they tell us a story more accurate than spot price at this point. Demand is heating up significantly at these prices. IMHO that is why we did not go below 308. Now we are seeing significant bid up ( +5.00 ) in Japan MEX. As we have seen markets feed on each other's up/down movements around the globe I believe we may see Asian demand as well as western private interest rekindle this golden fire.

Regardless of all this microscopic diddly I just reread Martin Armstrong notes May97 and feel that his prediction of ever increasing currency volatility leading to all sorts of problems in trade, economic distortions and to gold/silver explosion is very appropo here. He's no gold bug folks. He's got the goods as far as an international audience of the highest caliber. They do not countenance fools. He is calling for gold between 1200 and 10,000 by 2003. His main contention is that the Floating Exchange Rate system is a bad deal and that EMU is also a bad deal. His focus is understanding capital flows. Could I argue? Hardly. It makes sense to me though I have few qualifications for evaluating his point of view.

Sorry I can't help with a stunning technical analysis of the day's action which will make you a pile of money tomorrow. But a ( few ) year ( s ) from now I believ we will see things a bit differently that today.

Nick @Aussie ( Or anybody else online who can help )

I am trying to find charts or delyed updates that are free for the the ASX and the SPI as it trades here in. Aussie. Also charts for the Hang Seng and Nikkei Indexes

Thanks in advance guys Warren

Nick @Aussie--Good morning--I just reread the "Blue Skies" piece at the Gold-Eagle. Quite a spooky read so close the Halloween. It dovetails with your Tsunami analogy. The complacency is eerie. http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials/blue_skys.html

Nick@Aussie - Thanks for your thoughtful and analyticl post. You and a very few others here have the TA stuff that I don't have. Just wondering how often you have a 'hit' verses a 'mis' with your methodolgy and models? Do you make better calls in up or down moves?

My totally unrationalized gut feeling is that we are toast. Which is basicly what you have arrived at.

Nick--Was wondering your opinion on smaller mining stocks that are not widely followed. If the metals rise signifigantly and suddenly, how do you see them faring if your scenario happens? ( any one else's comments welcome )

Auric

"Experience seems to settle
That paper is not metal
And promises of payment
Are Neither food nor raiment"

shall i go on or have you heard herd it before amigo?

Here is a web site about tsunamis. Look at the picture here. Illustrates Nick's post quite well. http://planet-hawaii.com/tsunami/index.html

Morning aurator. Hey, always ready for the verse! Gotta say, I think companies that have actual metal in the ground will kick ass, but who really knows. Halloween is here with goblins all about! "Tsunamis, El Nino, and Y2K; Greenspan testifies, what will he say?"

BART at KITCO

Your directory to which I post charts is unavailable to post to.
I think it is normally /pub/discussion.

Where should I send these files to, so that they can be linked to Kitco discussion.
Nick
sharefin@cairns.net.au

To all I am extremely busy trying to get these charts up and posted and will respond to queries as soon as I can get some time.

Auric: I have two small gold company stocks High River Gold HRG ( TSE ) and Golden Phoenix GPXM ( NASDQ. Both companies highly rated. HRG went from $2.35 on Oct 17 to $2.55 on the 20th and to $2.34 on the 23rd before the Friday DOW drop. It was $2.00 Friday, $1.90 yesterday and back to $2.00 today. GPXM was at $4.25 on the 17th and went up to $4.41 on the 21st, down to $4.03 on the 22cd, up to $4.19 on the 23rd and to $4.32 on the Friday the 24th. By Monday it was at $4.03 and today $3.81. I hope that helps. These stocks are excellent prospects. HRG has production now in the Lake Baikal area of Russia.

Webtv shuts down from 4am to 7am every Wednesday, so I will try to slip this in. Been listening to music here, lately. Mozart Clarinet Quintet, Beethoven's Ninth, and some rousing Oktoberfest fare. Also, some kick-ass Cajun-Zydeco. They all seem to resonate with the markets right now. Auric, AWAY!!

Auric, well i guess it never hurts to repeat a good 'un huh? This was written after the collapse of the London & Country Banks in 1824. What happens when good folk realise they've been conned. It could never happen again, huh?


PAN IN TOWN WITH A CITIZENS' CHORUS

PAN
The country banks are breaking:

The London banks are shaking:

Suspicion is awaking:

E'en the quakers are quaking:

Experience seems to settle,

That paper is not metal,

And promises of payment

Are neither food nor raiment;

Then, since that, one and all, you

Are fellows of no value

For genius, learning, spirit,

Or any kind of merit

That mortals call substantial,

Excepting the financial,

( Which means the art of robbing

By huckstering and jobbing,

And sharing gulls and gudgeons

Among muckworms and curmudgeons )

Being each a flimsy funny

On the stream of paper money,

All riding by sheet anchors,

Of balances at Bankers;

Look out! for squalls are coming,

That if you stand hum-drumming,

Will burst with vengeance speedy,

And leave you like the needy

Who have felt your clutches greedy,

All beggarly and seedy

And not worth a maravedi.

*CHORUS*

Our balances, our balances,

Our balances, our balances:

Our balances we crave for;

Our balances we rave for:

Our balances we rush for:

Our balances we crush for;

Our balances we call for:

Our balances we bawl for:

Our balances we run for:

Our balances we dun for:

Our balances we pour for:

Our balances we roar for:

Our balances we shout for:

Our balances we rout for:

Our balances, our balances,

We bellow all about for



Thomas Love Peacock 1825.


Ain't that something?

Gotta share this, from "Extraordinary Popular Delusions...." The following list is what one tulip bulb was worth at the height of the mania--Two lasts of wheat-448 florins, Four lasts of rye-558 florins, Four fat oxen-480 florins, Eight fat swine-240f, Twelve fat sheep ( heh heh ) -120f, Two Hogshead of wine-70f, Four tuns of beer-32f ( I have no f'ing idea how much a tun is, but at 32 florins you couldn't go wrong! ) Two tuns of butter-192f, one thousand pounds of cheese-120f, A complete bed-100f, A suit of clothes-80f, and a Silver drinking cup-60f. The sum total is 2500 florins for one tulip bulb.

Aurator: Reference to the country bank collapse of 1824-1826 in England. There were 600 banks, mostly associated with a particular industry, all were private and unregulated.

The bank crisis is blamed on small, weak country banks issuing too many small denomination notes and private mint tokens. Parliament baned the issue of notes of less than 5 in England and Wales but not, after protests, in Scotland. Parliament also allows the creation of new joint-stock banks outside a 65 mile radius of central London and also permited the Bank of England to set up regional branches.

Partly from the History of Money ( Davies )

Dow/Gold Ratio 23.75 and XAU/Spot Ratio .282 at yesterday close. Sorry for the delay but could not access last night. Figured it out with the help of Panda and JTF. Thank you both.

Didnt the airbags works well? Thats hot-airbags?

Nick@Aussie: I totally agree with your prediction of 1:49. I see the same result from a different angle.

It has been nearly 3 months since a new Dow high. All the wrong people are bullish. They think that this is 1987, buy the dip for the long haul. The difference from 1987 is Asia, in particular Japan. The irrational exuberance of Japan in the 1987-1990 period leading up to their collapse bouyed the rest of the world. There is no country or currency in the world now that is safe. There is no bank in Japan that even meets BIS standards. Asia has built modern production capacity far in excess of world ability to absorb. For example, the world will have production capacity for 80 million automobiles per year by year 2000.

In all the currency shuffle of recent months there must be a significant bank loss. These are bank to bank speculations. Someone had to be a loser. We just need to wait for the announcement.

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/28/z0000_z00_52.html

http://www.lp-llc.com/cents/lonski.shtml

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/28/y0023_z00_34.html

Auric re: your tsunami post of 03:09 -- thanks, mate. I will repost it for those who missed it.

http://planet-hawaii.com/tsunami/index.html

Auric-- I was there!! I have a photo album of pictures just like the one shown. My father was a pilot ( crop dusting ) and I was a 13 year old 7th grader at Waikea Kai Intermediate in Hilo, Hawaii on that day in 1960. Every time there was a big earthquake in either the Aleutian Islands off Alaska or the South American coast, sirens went off on streets all over Hilo. On May 21st, 1960 when an 8.5 Richter scale earthquake struck the coast of Chile we had to evacuate to a friends house on a high cliff overlooking Hilo harbor. The shock wave took 15 hours to travel the 6600 miles from Concepcion to Hilo and arrived about midnight our time. We heard news reports of destructive waves hitting the coast of S. America. We had had so many false alarms that we didn't really take it seriously. You know, the boy who cried wolf syndrome. Some of my friends' parents went down to the bay to "watch the wave come in". There was a bar just near the waterside and they all had a merry time waiting near the Wailoa bridge. Just after midnight the water under the bridge rose about 4 feet., then fell away and by 12:30 a.m. was 3 feet below normal ( the first wave from Chile ) . A few minutes later the sidewalk near the bridge was flooded. At about 12:45 a.m. the second wave flooded the businesses along the main street of Hilo harbor--about nine feet above normal under the bridge. I didn't know any of this as it was pitch black and there was no sound-- in fact an eerie calm came over us ( as the water was withdrawing from the harbor ) . At 1 a.m. we heard a slight roaring sound which increased in volume until about three or four minutes later it was so loud that we could not hear each other's screams of horror as we looked out into the darkness. At about 1:05 a.m. the wave ( a wall of water @ 20-30 feet tall and with the whole harbor behind it ) hit the electrical power plant on the south side of the harbor opposite us and the plant blew up like a July 4th fireworks display. In that few seconds I witnessed a wall of water rolling over the town of Hilo. I can see it right now just as clearly as I did 37 years ago. My Mom was screaming hysterically and she said "Oh my God, the dogs and cats are dead!!." We had put our animals upstairs in the house before we evacuated.

The next few days we spent helping to clean up what was left of the town. The first two blocks of the business district were gone. My school was picked up and deposited on the other side of the road ( a fair ways inland ) . I saw parking meters laying down flat on the ground. I saw a telephone pole that survived but had a tree branch stuck right through the middle of it. Sixty one people were killed,including my friends' parents who, beer in hand, watched the wave come in. One of my teachers, Mrs. Yamamoto, stayed behind because her father refused to evacuate. When she was found, her brains had been forced out of her nose. My baseball coach and his wife climbed the biggest banyan tree they could find at the last minute. When I saw them next day, they were covered in bandages. He told me about the experience but was still in a state of shock-- as were we all. Another of my teachers hauled ass in her car at the last minute. Her car was picked up and put down a mile further on. She walked away. I found my classroom in my mangled schoolhouse, found my desk along with all the others piled up in a corner, and took out my new camera which I had brought in for show-and-tell ( never worried about stealing in those days--seven years in Hilo and never locked the house once ) , and took the pictures that I still have today--as well as the camera.

Sorry to be so long winded Auric. Your post dredged up old memories and this is the first time in 37 years,other than fleeting references here at Kitco,that I've really had much to say about it. A good catharsis for me. To this day I will not live in a house on the shore. Just love those high cliffs overlooking the water though. PS--our dogs and cats survived. Cheers, Nick@Canberra.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/97/10/28/y0004_23.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/28/z0009_22.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/28/z0000_z00_59.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/97/10/28/amd_chir_1.html

Nick - Just read your long post three times. WOW - are you certain that this is the vision because if so it's a financial armegeddon? As a matter of interest I got out of Dominion and other Gawler Craton stocks two weeks ago so although feeling smug I have enough compassion for my fellow man ( and woman ) to be frightened for them. In the market Monday, I noticed that the best performing were the banking warrants. But from what you say, even these are not much good!
anyway, thanks to you and fellow Kitcoites for brilliant, anarchistic information.

http://nypostonline.com/business/226.htm

http://www.theage.com.au:80/daily/971029/bus/bus9.html

Gold down 2.4 and silver dowm .5. What is S&P and other markets?

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/28/z0009_87.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/28/y0004_z00_15.html

Nick :
What are your favorite puts, please give symbol also. Thanks in advance.

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/29/z0009_1.html

Nick ( @Aussie ) : Thanks for your 1:49 post. I just lost 10k going long on gold stocks and did not feel comfortable outguessing the market. Your approach of using options is much better, because less of your assets are at risk. I am not good enough yet at options to make money reliably.
I do not know if we are going to have that market crash now, or in 1999-2000. However, I do know that the longer our AG and the Central Banks maintain the status quo, even with "healthy" corrections, the worse the financial Tsunami when it finally comes. You can't eliminate those Kondratiev cycles.
I would love to go long on gold stocks, but I don't think the "fear" level is high enough in the general public for that to be a safe enough investment. When the Tsunami comes, or even only market turmoil for a time, the gold stocks are going to get caught in the suction.
I think the short-term info is going to come from Donald, and from Kiwi's impressive posts from yesterday. The key question is -- are the "New World Order" gurus really in control, or is the Hong Kong -- Japan connection going to lead to a financial meltdown, which will not only bring down all ( underline all ) of the equities markets, as well as the derivatives markets. Also beware getting short changed on derivatives -- I tried to get some XAU options "at the market" -- tried to cancel the order when I saw the order was not going through, and was unable to do so. In the meanwhile the market conditions had changed dramatically. Don't expect that the option approach will necessarily work reliably either. A bunch of well placed puts and calls, as Nick ( @Aussie ) has apparently done, would be the best way if you are good at this.
If the financial Tsunami comes, we all will be looking at blank screens. This happened to me for the good part of yesterday, and I know it happened to some of the rest of you.

WW: S+P up 4.75 and the rest of the world ( minus a few exceptions like Thailand ( chuckle chuckle ) .. ) is UP and UP big-time----guess "happy days" are here again...Dec. gold down 2.0...drip drip drip

Oh well. The market "recovered" and all is well. The lesson learned is that PM's are not a safe haven in times of finicial crisis. This is obvious since they did not do anything during this "crisis". So say the talking heads. Guess that leaves only one thing for a paper wary, lunatic fringe conservative to do. Sell our PM's and invest in canned food, ammo, and a good bomb shelter!

One important thing about Japan, IMHO. That complex interlocking financial system that has kept them from fully correcting and reorganizing in the aftermath of the 1990 Japanese market crash, could very well collapse catastrophically under its own weight when it finally goes. Even Donald, and our other excellent Kitco posters may not be able to give us adequate warning.
I wonder what RR and AG have in their portfolios for a rainy day, or Rudiger Dornbusch, the economist who is so outspoken at or just before times of economic crisis.

S+P futures up 9.20----ain't life great...

October 29, 1997

Hang Seng Index Surges 19%,
Lifted by Wall Street, London

An INTERACTIVE JOURNAL News Roundup

The Hang Seng Index surged from its lowest point in nearly two years
Wednesday, lifted by a sharp rebound on Wall Street Tuesday and a
strong performance by Hong Kong shares traded in London.

The blue-chip Hang Seng Index shot up 1705.41, or 18.8%, to
10765.30. The gain was the largest single-day point rise in the Hong Kong
market's history.

Wednesday's spectacular gain helped the key
index to regain all the losses recorded during
Tuesday's market selldown, when the index
fell 14%, or 1,438.31 points.

On Wednesday, the Hang Seng Index traded
in a range of 10130.47-10765.30 points.

Meanwhile, the broader All Ordinaries Index
rose 674.10, or 14%, at 5380.98. Volume
was valued at 25.71 billion Hong Kong
dollars, slightly higher than the HK$25.24
billion in the previous session.

One broker was quick to call Wednesday's rebound technical, noting that
more sustained gains will depend on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

"It's mainly a technical rebound. I hope Wall Street can stabilize at the
current level...then the Hong Kong market can find some bottom here.
Maybe the index will test 11,000 to 12,000 ( point ) levels in the next few
days," said Alan Chan, deputy managing director at China Everbright
Research Ltd.

Other markets appeared to be rebounding as well.

The Nikkei in Tokyo rose 544.35, or 3.3%, to 16857.04 as investors
flocked back to blue-chip bank and electronic shares. The key indexes in
Australia rose 6.3%; Manila, 4.3%, and South Korea, 2.3%.

Early European trading appeared to be following Asia and Wall Street's
lead.

In London, share prices opened higher, regaining the remainder of
Tuesday's lost ground in the first few minutes of trading. The Financial
Times Stock Exchange 100 index of leading shares rose 143.6 points in
the first nine minutes of the session, encouraged in its recovery by Wall
Street's strong 4.7% advance late Tuesday.

In early trading, the FTSE 100 was holding the gain and was up 116.7 to
4872.1 points. Provisional volume for the whole market was 62.5 million
shares.

German stocks were rising in the first half hour of electronic trading
Wednesday in Frankfurt. The 30-share IBIS DAX stock index was at
3778.16, up 132.47 or 3.6%.

Return to top of page
Copyright  1997 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

You didn't have any trouble gettin through...did ya?..NAAAH..:
October 29, 1997

High Volume Creates Problems
For Investors Trading On-Line

By ANITA RAGHAVAN and JOHN SIMONS
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Hundreds of thousands of investors got the Internet's version of a busy
signal when they tried to buy and sell stocks via on-line trading services
run by mutual-fund giant Fidelity Investments and securities firm Charles
Schwab & Co.

The problem was compounded because many
of these same investors got literal busy signals
when they tried to telephone San
Francisco-based Schwab and Boston-based
Fidelity to check prices and trade stocks
Tuesday.

The jam was a costly sideshow to Tuesday's
wild stock-market ride, in which the Dow
Jones Industrial Average first plunged as much
as 189.83 points before recovering to finish
the day at 7498.32, up 337.17.

Nasdaq Situation

Meanwhile, on the Nasdaq Stock Market, there weren't complaints, as
there were in 1987, of Nasdaq market-makers' not picking up their
phones to answer calls from brokers who wanted to sell stock. But there
were delays in getting final stock price quotes for dissemination to
newspapers and electronic news services.

And at Travelers Group's Smith Barney Inc. unit, heavy trading volume led
to delays in trade execution around midday and prompted some brokers
to advise clients to execute trades elsewhere.

Still, it was the problems trading on the Internet, particularly at Fidelity and
Schwab, that investors found the most trying Tuesday.

It's no wonder.

The on-line brokerage market has exploded 130% in the past year, and is
expected to reach $614 million in fees and commissions compared with
$268 million in 1996, according to a report published by
Minneapolis-based brokerage firm Piper Jaffray Inc.

Investor's Complaint

"All these ads that Charles Schwab puts out about how tough and secure
his mighty on-line system is, well, it failed me when I needed it," said Brant
Gaede, one investor trying to offset the bruising losses of recent days. He
said he was stymied in his efforts to buy stock on the cheap.

Mr. Gaede had wanted to put some cash to work Tuesday by buying
8,000 shares of Xoma Corp., a Nasdaq-traded drug company, when it
appeared that the stock market was stabilizing and poised to move higher.

"I said this is the time to trade because I have a feeling this market is going
to get better," said Mr. Gaede, an active trader in Tucson, Ariz. But when
"I tried to place a trade [on-line], I got locked out of the system and
couldn't get back in."

Then, Mr. Gaede said, he tried calling Schwab's representatives on the
telephone, but he got a busy signal. "There was nothing but busy signals all
morning long from Tucson."

Trader Meets Delay

Mr. Gaede said the lack of access cost him about $8,000. When he first
decided to buy the 8,000 shares of Xoma, it was trading at $5.875, he
said, but by the time he reached a Schwab representative the stock had
popped to $6.625. The numbers suggest that if he had been able to buy
the shares initially, he would have netted a profit of nearly $8,000 by
midday Tuesday. By late in the day, his gains were even fatter, as the
stock closed at $7.0937, up 59.375 cents.

Tracey Gordon, a spokeswoman at Charles Schwab, said the securities
firm's "systems are all up. They are just slower than usual."

One of the reasons, Ms. Gordon said, is that Schwab's volume Tuesday
was three times its normal rate. By midafternoon Eastern time, Schwab
had handled one million customers and expected to deal with 1.5 million
by the end of the day.

Ms. Gordon advised that investors having a hard time getting through
"hang up and try again" or use any one of Schwab's 264 branches. "If you
can't get through on one channel, try another."

At one of Schwab's biggest on-line rivals, Fidelity, the picture was much
the same.

Robin Carpenter, president of Carpenter Analytical Services in Hanover,
N.H., a fund-research firm, needed to speak to a Fidelity representative
Tuesday. He said he called a Fidelity toll-free number at 9 a.m. and was
told by an answering machine to press "3" to speak to a person. He tried
six times but never got through. "It will ring and ring and ring, but nada,"
Mr. Carpenter said. "And after three minutes, it cuts you off."

Rick Rathey, a Boston travel manager, said he called Fidelity 15 times
Tuesday before getting through. But he wasn't surprised by the logjam.
"You can't expect them to handle the increased volume," he said.

Terry Kilduff, a Fidelity spokeswoman, acknowledged that because of the
"unusually high volume of calls, some customers have had to wait before
speaking to a Fidelity representative. When you have a high volume of
calls trying to come through a phone trunk at one time, it may have caused
some callers to receive a busy signal."

Ms. Kilduff said Tuesday's volume was the highest one-day retail figure
Fidelity has ever experienced and that the firm is increasing capacity to
deal with the hectic calling.

In many cases, telephone representatives at Fidelity and Schwab were
busy answering questions from clients nervous about the market's tumble
rather than executing trades, spokeswomen at both firms said.

E*Trade Securities, another competitor of Schwab, also experienced
problems Tuesday. "Some people had problems getting their balances late
in the day," said E*Trade's president and chief operating officer, Kathy
Levinson. Ms. Levinson said the site experienced no major outages. But
volume was immense. "We saw huge numbers of people on all night long.
They felt the need to check things a second and third time," she said.

--James S. Hirsch contributed to this article.

Return to top of page
Copyright  1997 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Nick ( @Aussie ) : Forgot to ask you last night. In your opinion from your technical analysis, how much time do we have? Could this go on for a year or so with fitful ups and downs -- or are we talking about the quiet while the ocean leaves the beach -- and the unsuspecting wander out.

Interesting pattern here must, as John Crudele points out, be the plunge protection team at work. Since June when we have had a +15 pt S&P drop 5 times and we have recovered everything within 2 or 3 days each time. It shows that the powers that be know that any down and stay down is completely unacceptable as it will slow the needed money flows from a public that expects 30% per year.

Now Gold stays down even though the whole Swiss thing is bogus. They had to make sure the PM's were technically weak when the mini tsunami hit this week. Silver was holding its up trend until they killed gold at the end of the day Friday otherwise silver would have exploded on this week's news. The gold killers probably participated in the S&P run up yesterday. Comex warehouse stks hit new lows on Silver on a daily basis gold levels also collapsing.

DAX +6.37
FT-SE +8.57
J'Burg GOLD +2.35

At the height of the feeding frenzy today I could not get any depth quotes from my "live" provider for which I am paying good money. I called them on the phone and they said they had to shut SOMETHING down because the volumes of trade going through were such that the system couldn't handle it. In a BIG-TIME CRUNCH don't expect your computer, broker's phone or anything else to work-- because they won't. By the time you get through to sell there will be no buyers at ANY price!!! Still, the waiting will do you good. I hear the poorhouse has long lines for the daily bowl of soup!!

Dec. Gold down 2.90 @ 313.60...Tort: Where's our joke???

Test!

JTF: Perhaps all of us ( myself included ) have been focusing too much attention on the Dow. There is big news this morning in the post about the 20 top Japanese banks not being able to meet the BIS standards. Of course the BIS may adjust the standards to accomodate but it is important to remember that those banks are not just the largest in Japan but many, perhaps most, are the largest banks in the world, not just in Japan.

The events of SE Asia have obviously hurt the US and European markets in recent days, but in percent terms the Nikkei seems to have suffered less. How can this be? Japanese banks are far more exposed to structural troubles in SE Asia by virtue of direct loans to the locals and to Japanese businesses operating in the region. The Bank of Japan has admitted to use of funds from the Postal Savings Plan in Japan to shore up stock prices. The reason given has been the need to have a banking system that meets BIS standards. Today that strategy is an admitted failure. It is very unusual for Japanese managers to admit failure.

I get the feeling that something is about to pop. I suspect that Alan Greenspan knows what it is. Let's read between the lines as he speaks today. He has mentioned the similarity of the Japanese Bubble to the present U.S. situation in the past.

Ted, here's your joke for the morning. Interesting preview of the markets. Who knows which way the wind will blow today. That being said here goes.

An Army Ranger was on vacation in the depths of Louisiana
and he wanted a pair of genuine alligator shoes in the
worst way, but was very reluctant to pay the high prices
the local vendors were asking.

After becoming very frustrated with the "no haggle"
attitude of one of the shopkeepers, the Ranger shouted,
"maybe I'll just go out and get my own alligator so I can
get a pair of shoes made at a reasonable price!"

The vendor said, "By all means, be my guest. Maybe you
will run into a couple of Marines who were in here earlier
saying the same thing."

So the Ranger headed into the bayou that same day and a few
hours later came upon two men standing waist deep in the
water. He thought, "those must be the two Marines the guy
in town was talking about." Just then, the Ranger saw a
tremendously long gator swimming rapidly underwater towards
one of the Marines.

Just as the gator was about to attack, the Marine grabbed
its neck with both hands and strangled it to death with
very little effort. Then both Marines dragged it on shore
and flipped it on its back. Laying nearby were several
more of the creatures.

One of the Marines then exclaimed, "Damn, this one doesn't
have any shoes either!"

Gold down big Fri then mini tsunami/ Gold down today maybe big ie new mini tsunami tomorrow after AG speaks. Short after AG speaks.

Have a look at the buying ticks when those top mkt caps turned around. Look at what the prem, tick etc were doing. Those shares were being dumped massively suddenly they were turned around and the buying force was far greater than the selling force. See the huge one minute ticks when they started to rise.
Never have I seen such deep one minute ticks. ( INTC 10:10am $6ticks etc ) Same with the prem, they had to push the prem up to four times its average to turn those suckers around. They only needed to hit 10 or 20 shares, as these shares carry all the market weighting within their indices. Notice how the Dow was up 100 when the SP was still down 20. The OEX was so far in front of the SP that it was a joke. They were only buying the biggest caps..The markets were being swamped with sell orders, so to get those shares back up the needed to buy at a faster rate than they were being sold. As each parcel was being dumped they needed to buy an even bigger parcel to make the share price go higher. The cost of doing this could be measured be the prem which was about 4 times higher than it ever goes. The VIX was going to the stratosphere. I did a rough calculation on IBM estimating that at least half of those volumes, for that 1/2 hr period, where being bought by the 'POWERS WHO BE'. If this was the case they bought about 1.5m shares =$150million. If this is the case they probably laid out one to two billion all up. ..Now if you were to look at the rest of the world there was massive dumping going on in every country. US was about to do the same, and would have if left alone. They had to stop this crash at any price and they did. Russia was down 20% others down 15% to 10% with the majority down at a 5% to 8%. .The implications of what has been done, needs to be exposed and explained. Today most of these indexes have bounced all the way back. Russia up 23%. Can you imagine how many investors had their minds whipsawed because of this. Every investor around the world who has bought or sold a share over the last two days. How many investors wanted to get out of the markets because they knew that it was time to, and fear dictated. They have dumped their shares only to have them manipulated back up..On AVID I saw the comment about the guy who was short from the day before, he saw what was happening and couldn't close out of his position because of the chaos. This sort of manipulation is absolutely unbelievable as it takes away the concept of free markets. .The Feds stopped the market from breaking out on the 9th Oct, because if it broke into a new uptrend it would have gone to about 9300 in half the time it took for its last leg up. If you have a look at the Dow for the last major leg up since 95, you can see that it was comprised of three legs 1800pts, 1300pts and 1200pts. The time for each leg was 1/2 the previous time period. The next leg would have put us up another 1100pts in 3 weeks. The fed could not let this happen so they capped the next run. When the masses realized this the started to sell, but it was getting out of control too quickly so they supported the market. If we were to go up 500 pts tonight the Feds would have to cap it again. This is market manipulation to the maximum and will only end with a massive dump when people start to realize. From all my indicators and oscillators on hundreds of charts and indexes, this market has put in a secular top and will not make new highs. Because of this we have now started a new trend - down. Because the markets follows trends, no-one can stop what is about to happen. This constant whipsawing can only sap the confidence of the investor and enhance the downtrend. This constant capping of the top and bottom will wear thin and when the markets go, they will go bigtime.
Have a look at your charts of last night and see if you agree?
IMHO

PS I can't post those charts yet.

Most veteran Kitco surfers have already read this essay about that infamous week 68 years ago TODAY. But for those who have not, it is indeed eerie irony and an interesting backdrop for the market history being forced before our very eyes:
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials/blue_skys.html

Why follow the markets ( ??? ) when I have a CASINO right down the road a piece...BBL kiddies....

I'm not sure that a 'crisis' team did much other than make a few calls, maybe place a few large options. My sense is that there are MILLIONS of people who, as articles posted here show, who really DO believe that the good times will simply roll on. They have about 1 Tln in money market funds to laddle into this stew. The professionals will use them to transfer shares reduce their exposure to the coming collapse.

Hey mate! Just read your piece on the proped up buying scheme; so, who's got that much balls? I can't imagine the big dogs taking that much risk!

Nick:

I think your analysis of the turn around is probably close to the mark. The idea that the government would step in to try and control the markets is extremely scary. It used to be that governments were the insurers of last resort. Thier bonds were worth something because in general they let private businesses collapse when the ought to have and thus allowed the market to clear itself of ideas or businesses which were wrongheaded or inefficient.

Over the last decade or so we have seen a change in this relationship to where now the goverment has become the guarantor of everything. There is now nothing that is too small to fail. No market that can clear, no idea that is wrong. By adopting this strategy of insuring everything, the risk of systematic failure drastically increases. Each time the game is played the stakes are higher and higher.

It is akin to going to a casino and betting black on the roulette wheel over and over, each time doubling your bet in the event of a loss. If your bet is a dollar and your bankroll is 65000 it would take 16 reds in a row to wipe you out. Generally, you could go into the casino and expect to make enough money to have a good dinner every night. As you chowed down on your lobster tails and beverage of choice you could slap hands with your buddies who were also enjoying thier 'free' meals. One day however, the run would end.

The reds would just keep coming and coming until you had to bet 32000 on black. The ball wouls spin round and round and round, bouncing between redemption and hell. You'ld ask for divine intervention and swear you'ld never play the game again if only this time you were saved. Trouble is, the big guy upstairs would know just as well as you, that your promise was bullshit.

Badger
If you could see all the charts that I have been looking at and see what really happened you would be absolutly blown out. Since when does INTC have $6 one minute ticks one after another.
Panda I don't know if you have INTC, IBM, MSFT, GE, KO 1min charts for the last two days but if you have can you please post them here.
This market has just got 100 times more dangerous.

Nick -- When we get back to 'normal' around here, I'll post what I have. Hopefully by late today or early tomorrow, Kitco should be back to normal.

Nick @ Aussie: More than a 200 point turnaround in the dow while the cash s&p moved less than one point can only mean one thing, US federal govt buying of key dow stocks.

Nick@Aussie - Your research is an education. No doubt this prop will be noticed by the most arudite ( such as yourself ) and acted upon. The big guys know exactly what happened and what will happen. I'm learning that this 'herd' can easily be lead up as well as down and it doesn't take much money ( at this point ) to alter public perceptions. The panic we have seen so far has not reached the level of blind fear. When it does no amount of money or manipulation will matter. Stampede!

Interesting post!! Thanks for sharing the TA info and your take on it.
Let's see what happens today. Yesterday I noticed that the UK market was the only one up in Europe and the NA markets followed. Today it looks like most Europe exchanges up but the UK down.... MAybe we're in for a down day here????

D.A.
Markets runs under special conditional rules - time and distance. When these compress, volatility increases. The last two days have seen the equivalent of about 3 months trading. The last two days has wiped $1trillion+ off the global markets, today put it all back on.
This type of volatility is unprecedented and soooooo dangerous.
This crash has now become more of a certainty because of this.

Alan Greenspan will to roil markets. Time's up

http://nypostonline.com/business/257.htm

Most free quote services were not working well yesterday. This one is less known and performed flawlessly.

http://qs-alt.sacapl.com/cgi-bin/qs

OOPS !!

http://qs-alt.secapl.com/cgi-bin/qs

ALLAN GREENSPAN!!!!!!
If you want to save these markets you need to use your captital at the bottom of the fall rather than at the top. If you use up all your resources trying to prop up this market, you will have nothing left to use at the bottom.
A 30% correction to bleed off these excesses, is far better than a 50% CRASH!!!. You should let the market fall 25% and then start injecting funds to start slowing the momentum down. When it gets down to 30% really turn the money supply on to halt it from falling further. And if at that stage everyone wants to buy it capp it then. Only in this way will you truly be able to contain what is about to happen. IMHO.

You have well articulated the ominous fears and feelings that have been churning my gut these last few weeks. I agree the current "rally" is a phoney. As for Gold I remain committed but bamboozled by it's disappointing performance so far.

Just awoke...What did I just miss on cnbc..AG ommns

Donald: The Japanese market suffered less than the others because it has been in BEAR tend for a long time. Most of the bad news -- real and imagined -- has been discounted.

Nick; Thanks for your most informative technical analysis of yesterday's bounce. The advance/decline numbers were the worst I have ever seen for such a big jump in the Dow. The longer the market is artificially propped up, the bigger the inevitable bust. Same with gold -- the longer it is artificially dampened, the higher it goes when the powers that be lose control.

Check-mate. Fiat paper is dead. The $US dollar will fall so hard now that in contrast the Continentals will look like they are going straight up. The bottom in GOLD is definitely in. Friday's plunge was the final washout. Get ready to look *back* at $340/ounce with nostalgia.

Greenspan will be shaking his stick in less than one hour. Pop goes the bubble.

The kind of dip in the metals I posted last night that I was looking for.
Went skinny dippin' in the metals this morning a wee bit. Gold may take another small hit though. If they sit at these lower prices too long, they'll go the other way, at least short term. Buy low, sell higher. Keep fairly close in stops. No sense not to.

My opinion is one of extreme caution. I think that something so massive looms before us that today. Early in the trading today I intend on selling every stock I have and getting out and fast as possible.

My reading of various materials from a very spectral arena tells me that the deflationary forces are the winds of the day and I agree with Nick and others, a storm of monumental proportions looms ever so closely just over the horizon. The government means nothing, the media means nothing, the market and investor sentiment mean nothing.

These destructive forces will leave a shell shocked world in it's wake. I am not a gloom and doom soothsayer. No, rather I see that those positioned properly will reap the benefits of prudent thinking. Gold will not be the immediate champion, but I feel that it will be King in a world gone mad with easy paper and immediate and instant gratification when the smoke clears. It will take some time for that smoke to clear. Those that can afford the gold stocks should dive in with both hands when they feel the timing is right to shield the toils of their labors in a golden cloak. Like testing the ice as one tentatively moves onto a frozen lake. Tread prudently and survive, more too quickly and you will be engulfed in a nuclear financial winter.

The very fact that one man, Mr. Greenspan, can wreak havoc on world markets reveals a financial world run amuck, perhaps something biblical can be drawn from this. A world looking to a mere mortal, whose words speak to nothing more than greed, avarice, money and a false sense of power.

This man is his own worst protagonist, his own words bow strike in his sleep as piercing arrows of gold find their mark...his soul, a soul corrupted by worthless paper money. He has become that which in his youth he despised, the creator of bureaucratic figment standard paper.

His catharsis is sublimated by the long hours he spends in the tub. He cannot scrub that part of him which needs a cleansing. They make no detergent for the soul. Perhaps his God has given him a reprieve. A ring reveals itself around the tub as he towels off and bath water runs down a drain. He can not escape it. It shines oh too bright. There before his very eyes, is a ring, a golden ring.

Perhaps that is why he has spoken of gold so often, so many times, so recently in public appearances. He knows he cannot save a world gone mad, but hopefully some will heed his message and in this manner maybe he can garner some manner of that which any individual should hold highest.

Self respect.

EBN has the dollar down slightly almost across the board. Is this due to the -0.6% durable order news? If the expectation is for lower interest rates, then I would think that the dollar would fall. If the dollar falls, our stocks and bonds look less attrative to foreigners. Import prices would not contribute as much to a 'decline' in inflation due to the falling dollar.

How do these mucky mucks in Washington keep track of all of this??? It seems to me that if you 'find' one banana peel to step on... It's all over.

Get ready... get set.... GO. 3 hours from now SELL.. SELL... SELL... SELL... SELL... SELL.... SELL ... THE BULL LOST IT'S LAST LEG.

Does anybody know EBNs e-mail? I'm sick and tired of looking at their 'inverted' arrows on gold and silver!!!!!! ( Must be a sick joke, right? )

Gold open interest rose further Monday, signalling that short covering was NOT responsible for that day's price increase.

Has anyone else been having trouble accessing Kitco? I was unable to get onto Kitco all day yesterday. Some thoughts on the stock market:

Studying past crashes, they don't crash in 1 day. Rather they crash over a period of 2 to 3 weeks. Some, like Japan stretced the crash out as long as 6 weeks. In the present case, I doubt that the ongoing global crash will stretch out that long.

During 1929, there were 3 high-volume sell-offs. The first came during late September. The 2nd occurred on October 24th -- Black Thursday. The 3rd one came on Black Tuesday, October 29th, 1929. The South Sea Bubble also had several big 1-day panics -- before reaching the final devastating collapse.

Also, organized buying support was a key element in previous crashes. Whenever the market looked like it was falling apart, key players and banks simultaneously bought shares to support the market -- in the hopes of giving the public confidence. Those attempts failed beyond a one or two day counter-trend rally.

Finally, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that an avalanch of margin calls went out the past few days. However, most brokers are giving clients 5 business days to meet the calls. That means, that if the stock market doesn't recover immediately, the selling from those margin calls will take place Thursday through mext Monday. There is definitely selling pressure building in the marketplace. Obviously, both the brokers and their clients are hoping for a rebound to bail them out from making forced sales into a weak market.

Yesterday, if there was S&P futures buying on the part of banks and brokers ( financed by easy Fed credit ) , this type of buying is no different than the organized buying that occurred in previous crashes. It is in the interest of the banks and brokers to keep this bull market going. However, no group is more powerful than the marketplace. If this Bubble has burst, then no institution or group of institutions will be able to prevent the coming crash. All that organized buying does is: It lets a few more desperate sellers get out before the market crashes.

It may be pushing it for the market to reach its final selling climax by Friday -- Halloween. But, if it doesn't, then the brunt of the selling should be seen next week. In that event, LGB will have barely escaped a shoe-shine -- much to my chagrin.

In any event, I'm still super-bearish on stocks, and also recommend buying gold and silver coins as the only monetary alternative to a collapsing global credit-system.

Regards,

Steve Puetz

Nick:

You are right that things are moving in high gear. One of the reasons the volatility is going to be here for a while is that everyone's systems are now synchronized. Whenever there is gigantic movement in price and volume over a very short time, this input will become the dominant one for many systems. It also has the effect of synchronizing psychology. Everyone is focused on whether or not the rally will hold. As the pendulum swings back and forth between yes and no the waves will remain large.

Today's talk by Greenspan will undoubtedly contain nothing at all which could remotely harm the markets. We will probably hear something to the effect that the problems in Asia will have a natural dampening force on our economy and that this will ease some of the building inflationary pressures. A little rally in bonds and stocks should ensue. Al probably knows that the plunge reversal operation needs to get another day under its belt. Thursday morning seems like a good time to get short again.

Given the past performance of gold everytime Greenspan has spoken, caution is the watch word of the day. As I've posted before, his words seem to be directed to gold. At least, that's how gold has reacted. Not the paper. Will today be different? We'll certainly see!

Paper will burn.

The Dancing Bear is going to go flat If Feb gold trades through 318

George
Gold down and globex up?
I think that the last few days of buying the physical are upon us.
This market has the potential to be at the bottom within the week.
At that stage you will not be able to afford physical.
Under no circumstaces would I hold gold stocks or others during this period. We will be able to accumalate all the gold shares we want at unbelievable prices at the bottom so long as we are well cashed up and quick. I already have my targets picked out and intend to sell my SPX puts 3/4 of the way down the fall, so to be ready to start accumalating
I don't believe gold will rise till the dow has gone down 3/4 of its coming fall. At that stage gold will rocket immensely. Gold stocks that have been caught in the downdraft will not start to rise untill this crash has been purged and stopped and even then demand could be weak due to investor dissillusionment over stocks overall.
IMHO

Panda @EBN Gold & Silver prices: Panda, you will find World, London, Globex, Singapore and Tokyo GOLD PRICES at the following website:
http://www.gold-eagle.com/quotes/goldcorner.html

Noticed the WSJ had two - count 'em, two - graphs of gold prices/futures yesterday in two unrelated articles. This indicates to me that the powers that be still respect gold, and that this respect is once again highlighted in times of economic stress.

This reinforces my nascent and yet tentative conclusion that gold will continue to be a store of value that constitutes ( 1 ) a hedge against certain types of economic aberrance and calamity, ( 2 ) a potential high-return item under certain scenarios, and ( 3 ) a long-term sidetracker/retreater and manifest disappointment in many other scenarios.

Correspondingly, one's attraction to this rare and shiny element, and to investments linked positively thereto, may be a function of one's perspective on the potential for economic trauma.

And continuing in this vein, a moralist - perhaps understood as "someone who bemoans the essential failings first of himself but also of society as a whole" - might look at the contemporary scene and conclude, This people does not deserve prosperity, and whatever economic health we may be enjoying will certainly not last.

Now, our spiritual and religious perceptions may play into our investment decisions: consider the case of the Old Testament prophet who was divinely instructed to make a real estate purchase and given the sovereign assurance that the wisdom of that purchase would be revealed by coming events. This is not, of course, to suggest that our religious persuasions are rooted in and intended to serve our economic aims; it is quite the other way around.

Finally, venturing off-topic a bit, let me say this to relate the Y2K problem to the events of the past few days. Many organizations, in government and industry, have a flickering hope of subduing their Y2K demons only because in boom times there is adequate near-discretionary funding for such activity. A tightening in the next year or two will present a double whammy, with no escape: the Y2K changes absolutely have to be done, and done on time, and they may have to be done with a shrinking funding source. Furthermore, these expenditures will generate no return other than - at best - keeping each afflicted organization afloat, post-2000, at its pre-2000 level of software capability.

Hey--Can't they get it right--Same book different page? So far we have been told that billions were spent yesterday trying to stop the melt down. Now we are be told that Greenspan will cause the crash in a couple of hours. This could lead to a lot of disharmony amongst the powers that be.

ANYONE: What time exactly does ALAN GREENPSAN GO ON STAGE? Will it be trick or treat?

The Plunge Team will begin to "profitably" unload all of their long S&P futures contracts very soon and that will place a downward bias on the market. The Plunge Team prevented a "crash" but cannot reverse the market's overall direction indefinitely. Similarly, gold cannot be held down by the CBs if the dike breaks.

Listen well everyone

Will Angel do an honest translation of Greenspeak or will the sqaulking heads at CNBC give him the bums rush if he deviates from what the spin Doctors want us to hear.

Greenspan acknowledges that S.E. Asia is a problem.... Correction was bound to happen.... Salutory effect on markets....

Considerable turbulance......provided that ...doesn't accumulate....it will be a salutory event

Looks like him cover himself pretty well..but we know things will continue to unravel globally..He is doing damage control....Anyone have a pre-release of AG SPEACH PLEASE POST AASAP.

Considerable turbulance......provided that ...doesn't accumulate....it will be a salutory event

Looks like he is covering himself pretty well..but we know things will continue to unravel globally..He is doing damage control....Anyone have a pre-release of AG SPEACH PLEASE POST AASAP.

FWIW -- Trading at Schwab is VERY slow. Opening volume is heavy at 143+ million shares in first ~40 minutes.

BBL

I can literally watch the intervention by Big Brother in the Dow. On the Quote.com live java quotes, I watched as an early 30+ point rally started to come apart. Right near where trading started for the day, the PREM indicator took a big jump to like 900. Bingo! The average gapped up. Once the PREM dropped back to "normal" ( 300-400 ) the price slide resumed from the higher level. IMHO, when this micromanagement is exposed once the crap hits the fan, it is going to blow up in whoever's face ( s ) . I could just hear the retort at the Market Manipulation Subcommittee Hearings: "But we felt we were providing necessary liquidity and stability to the markets. After all, everyone knows that markets are not truly free..."

GAMES OVER

" If Gold Should Cease to be Gold" by Stephen Leacock, Canadian Institute Mining and Metallurgy Bulletin, August 1932. Leacock showed himself to be concerned with economic practice rather than theory.

"Economists tell us, that we do not need gold as the basis of our money." Leacock's objection was that the economist had forgotten the difference between us and money. "Money did not need gold; anything would do for a basis, but man needed gold as a money base because too many people were involved in gold as a business to take away its reason for being."

In 1933, Leacock advocated reducing the gold in the dollar from twenty-three grains to seventeen grains. because gold was material and could be controlled, the resulting price rise could be controlled. It could be done, he said, with "inflation" by unbacked paper money but it would be "as hard to maintain as it is to keep a man one-quarter of one per cent intoxicated under the Volstead Act."

Stephen Leacock, was one of the first political economists in Canada to break away from preoccupation with purly fiscal problems. This stated Leacock's belief admirably. "Government was not a budget; it was a service for its citizens, and citizens were people. Economics should not be a game of juggling the figures of supply and demand; it should be an attempt at foretelling the demand far enough in advance that it could be supplied, or of determining the supply in time to divert the demand."

"People, not science, should be served by statistics." Leacock

Mr. Goldfinger - on Gold.....

away


Sounds like they are on the same page. Market up 70 points while AG was speaking.

Gold and gold stocks have almost always taken serious hits when AG testifies. If the complex manages to avoid a serious selloff today, that would be quite bullish in itself.

Not having a crystal ball, I cannot predict exactly when the gold bull will begin or from what price. Neither can anyone else. But I do think the odds are high the next gold bull will commence with an explosive rally of at least $20 in a single day and perhaps $50 in a week. It will be tough to get aboard if you are not in early.

Folks, in my opinion, what we have witnessed up until last Thursday in the paper markets was NOT a mania. What we are witnessing NOW is a mania. God help us all.

Headlines by Topic
Wednesday, October 29, 1997


All times are Eastern. This page will automatically refresh every five minutes.

10:33 [GEL] GENESIS ENERGY EARNS Q3 $2.1 MLN, OR 24 CENTS/UNIT.
10:32 GREENSPAN: UNCLEAR RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INFLATION, UNEMPLOYMENT.
10:29 [IQIQ] APPLIED INTELLIGENCE LOSES Q3 29 CENTS/SHR VS 22 CENTS.
10:29 INVESTMENT MISTAKES CAN CAUSE MARKET RETRENCHMENT: GREENSPAN.
10:28 DOW INDUSTRIALS UP 100 POINTS; NASDAQ COMPOSITE UP 19.
10:27 [IFS] INSIGNIA FINANCIAL REIT UNIT COMPLETES $10 MLN IN TENDER OFFERS.
10:26 GREENSPAN: U.S. ECON CAN GROW IN SOLID, 'NON-INFLATIONARY' MANNER.
10:24 [MICN] MICRION WINS $4 MLN MAGNETIC HEAD CONTRACT FROM JAPANESE FIRM.
10:21 DOW INDUSTRIALS UP 70 POINTS AS GREENSPAN SPEEKS IN WASHINGTON D.C.
10:20 [PAIR] PAIRGAIN TECH UPPED TO BUY FROM HOLD AT UBS SECURITIES.
10:18 [GOYL] GARGOYLES LOSES Q3 18 CENTS/SHR VS 0 CENTS.
10:17 [ERICY] ERICSSON SIGNS $30 MLN GSM EXPANSION PACT WITH TELENOR MOBIL.
10:16 [CHRZ] COMPUTER HORIZONS UPPED TO STRONG BUY FROM BUY AT UBS.
10:15 [NOSH] HAIN FOOD FILES TO OFFER 2.8 MLN COMMON SHARES.
10:14 [CPU] COMPUSA PLANS ON OPENING 30-40 SUPERSTORES IN FY98.
10:14 [TSEMF] TOWER SEMICONDUCTOR CUT TO ATTRACTIVE FROM BUY -- BEAR STEARNS.
10:13 [RNB] REPUBLIC NEW YORK OKS BUYBACK OF UP TO 1 MLN SHARES.
10:13 [LAMR] LAMAR ADVERTISING UPPED TO STRONG BUY FROM BUY AT BT. ALEX BROWN.
10:12 GREENSPAN: LESSONS TO BE LEARNED FROM SE ASIA CURRENCY CRISIS.
10:12 GREENSPAN: MORE INVESTMENT IN DEVELOPING MARKETS THAN PROFITABLE
10:11 GREENSPAN: FED CAN'T AFFORD 'COMPLACENT' VIEW ON PRICE PROSPECTS.
10:11 [MDD] MCDONALD & CO EARNS Q2 37 CENTS/SHR VS 29 CENTS YEAR-AGO.
10:10 GREENSPAN: US RE-EVALUATION NOT DIRECTLY CAUSED BY ASIA.
10:09 [BH] BRISTOL HOTEL CUT TO BUY FROM STRONG BUY AT BT ALEX. BROWN.
10:09 GREENSPAN: IN US INTEREST TO PROVIDE ECON ASSISTANCE TO SE ASIA.
10:08 SE ASIA CRISIS HAS MODEST DIRECT IMPACT ON US ECONOMY: GREENSPAN
10:08 [HFS,CUC] CUC INTL, HFS UPPED TO SRONG BUY AT BT ALEX BROWN.
10:08 GREENSPAN: GOV'T SHOULD FOCUS ON MACRO POLICY WHEN STOCKS CRASH
10:07 [CMPX] CMP MEDIA UPPED TO BUY FROM ATTRACTIVE UPPED BY BEAR STEARNS.
10:06 SE ASIA CRISIS HAS MODEST DIRECT IMPACT ON US ECONOMY: GREENSPAN
10:05 MARKET CRASH SHOULD HELP PROLONG EXPANSION: GREENSPAN.

I have a couple of books written by Doug Casey that I picked up from the used book shop. They were written in 1979 ( Crisis Investing ) and 1982 ( Strategic Investing ) . Both are interesting reading from another era where people acually made money on gold stocks.

About two years ago, Casey wrote another book which was similar to the "Great Reckoning" type of thing. I recall that he expected gold to continue the weak trend to further lows and then begin a great bull market. It sounds similar to the comments by M. Armstrong at PEI.

Does anyone have a recent outlook on gold from Doug Casey?

Someone once ridiculed me for quoting the wisdom of Dolly Parton so here we go again!
"Sometimes it pays to resist a temptation.
A better one may be coming along! ----Alfred E. Newman, Mad Magazine, Sept. '71

Not related to the above but:
Selby Re:Your 23:44 last night. I think that you miss the gist of my safe haven argument. In this case I was not trying to argue relative values for the last 25 years, or saying that gold has to necessarily move in an inverse relation to stocks in a crash, but was merely pointing out that even if gold 'treads water' in a stock market meltdown it is, in fact, acting to preserve ones wealth. ( Aside - Gold Stocks might not necessarily act in this manner - as many here have pointed out recently. )

HOLD ON

JTF
I think that it is only hours-days away, not days-months. We would have fallen hugely last night if there was no intervention. I posted a few days ago on my time frames. AG has changed the direction temporarily but I doubt not for long.

Here are my adv/dec swing charts:
http://www.cam.org/~jacad/sharefin/USswi.htm

Note the severity of the initial down plunge on the first chart. It is not into safe territory till the red m/a is totaly penetrated to the upside. This indicator would have got you back into the market at the bottom in April. Also notice the distribution during the last half of the run up to the dow top. Their was no distribution prior to this fall showing that the market was total unprepared, no fear present i.e. put/call ratios etc.

The next two charts show a longer look at this indicator and how it works. It would be a lot more explicit if the indices were present on the charts. Notice the long term breakout and how deeply it was broached.

The next six charts are adv/dec/unc showing the strength of the oscilations. Notice how severe the moves at an early stage of a decline. Also there are significant windows between the adv/dec lines prior to the crossover happening - this portays also to lack of fear/bullishness prior to the downturn. These windows were hardy present in the last two previous corrections, people were more scared/cautious then.

The last three are simple adv/dec charts.

The depth/strength of the oscilations in such an early stage of the decline, when the market was at its most bullish/lack of fear, tells me that there was an almost instantaneous panic i.e. change of sentiment.

Such a huge change in sentiment in such a short period of time followed by the rest of the world reacting
so violently, tells me that this move when carried through won't be small -30%, It will be large 50%.

The reaction by the world to buy the crash back up so quickly has changed my view that the coming crash will now be horrific 60% to 70%. We have just used up 100days of time/distance movements in two days.
One of the days the market spoke, the other day the feds bought.
The expression of this velocity cannot be contained, it must continue to move excessively now.
Either up or down in a very big way.

Also the dow daily short-term:
http://www.cam.org/~jacad/sharefin/Dow-st.gif
The dow daily:
http://www.cam.org/~jacad/sharefin/Dow-d.gif
The dow weekly:
http://www.cam.org/~jacad/sharefin/Dow-w.gif
The dow monthly: note the topping formation.
http://www.cam.org/%7Ejacad/sharefin/Dow-m.gif
The transports daily:
http://www.cam.org/%7Ejacad/sharefin/Trans.gif
The utilities daily:
IMHO

COMEX to raise margin deposits on gold futures

NEW YORK, Oct 29 ( Reuters ) - New York Mercantile Exchange is to raise margin deposits on its gold futures contracts traded on its COMEX division from the close of business on Thursday, an exchange official said.

The margins will be increased to $1,000 from $750 for clearing members, members and hedgers, and to $1,350 from 1,013 for speculators, the exchange said.

Re: Cotton...yawn...

Facts?: Bear market, trend down ( currently ) , volatilty VERY low ( good option buy? and Futures ) , lots-o-cotton?...

I have been tempted on several occasions to go long on some deferred contracts ( March and the even better lookin May ) . These options are CHEAP!! http://www.cyberramp.net/~chrismc/futopt.htm and
http://www.pmpublishing.com/volatility/ct.html ( some faves of mine )
CTZ7 is GONE ( maybe ) . I will w/w a little while longer. A historical ( long term ) 50% is 70.00, no? however the last 10 yrs. it is 83.70......hmmmmmmmmm...go figure......inflation?? I don't know. I like the May contracts but not until we touch 70.00...I think we will....

Mooon - Take your 6 of 7 wins ( awesome % ) and RUN TO THE HILLS or to the bank. imvho, pero claro... comments D.A.??

BUT...ALL BETS OFF if El Nio wants to shuck and jive...oh my!! Cotton can get VERY EXPENSIVE...VERY FAST...

away


gold down 2.70

One person does not a movement make, but, the fellow on the panel from NY totally disagrees with Greenspan relative to inflation being the greatest fear. No, rather he sees deflation as being the biggest threat to the party. The fellow from NY was vehement in making his point and disagreement with Mr. Greenspan.

Mr. Greenspan double-talked his answer by saying that reality will eventually hit us in the face deciding this topic one way or another. Does Mr. Greenspan have teflon flowing in his veins.

Mooney: I did miss you point last night. But gold is now selling down about $70 in a year or so and is currently selling below its "best guess" average cost per oz of 317 so it is a safe haven in many ways.

Dear Goldfinger,

Looking at some of your last comments ( "Gold limit up today"..."Game's
over"..."It's a sell, buy buy buy Gold"..."Greenspan will raise interest
rates in his speech today"...etc... ) makes me wonder if you have a
drinking problem or is it that you have difficulties to control your
immature emotions. Re-read yourself will you?

Alan: "Now Bob, don't you DARE allow the markets to slip while I'm giving my spiel to Congress, because it'll be BOTH our asses if you do. Use Fed or Treasury vehicles to shore up and advance the damn paper!"

Robert: "But Al, what the hell do we do when the markets start sellin' off again before the week's out?"

Alan: "That's not OUR problem! I publicly warned everybody over a year ago that the markets were bloddy too high. So, if the schmucks don't have the common sense to listen to the number one financial Honcho in the world, then they deserve what they will get... a DAMN MARKET CRASH. What else can I say...Bob?"

Robert: Ya gotta good point Al. Well, we at least divert the attention from our management of the situation by keeping the markets stable for a couple of days until the heat is off us. Then we can throw the entire blame on to the mess festering in southeast Asia and Japan. Poor ol' Hashimoto will problably lose his rise-bowl on this one. All with all due respect to the prestigeous visitor now in Washington, I can not help saying, Hashimoto doesn't have a Chinaman's Chance in Hell."

Alan: HaHa, "Yaah, I know whatya you mean. Now Bob, DON'T FORGET to support the damn markets while while I'm snowin' Congress."

Robert: "You Got-It, Al."

I'm entiltled to my opinion. SUIT YOURSELF. OH, BY THE WAY I DON'T DRINK "EVER" NEVER HAVE.

NOT! If and When this bull gets under way it will be EASY to get on board...buy the dips...GOld has very good contract liquidity and I have never understood it when some here say that 'it will be impossible to buy gold cheap' or 'you will lose your chance to jump on board'...'yada yada yada'...

I do NOT see gold getting off its dead-ass anytime soon...

away...to kick it and stub my toe ;- )


Selby - Thanks! It IS cheap.
EB - Thanks much. What first made me stand up and take notice was the long term charts which seemed to show for the last 4-5 years that Cotton puts in a low in Oct. and then rises. About four years ago ( hav'nt chart in front of me ) it actually exploded from the Oct. low for a nice 5 month run very similar to the run 3-5 month rally Silver had ( $5. to $9. ) in the Spring of '87 ( I believe ) .
6 pak - Raising of Gold's Comex margin requirements raises some interesting questions n'est pas?

Some quick impressions of Greenspans Testimony;

Behind the obvious need for a calm exterior serious concern about current financial events.

Strong hints that he expects more pain ahead as we pay for and accept the penalties for
past mistakes...and the intention to try and contain that "Pain" as much as possible.

Acknowledment and Strong hint that major Changes are necessary and afoot in the
present World monetary setup.

Tacit recognition of the Deflation/inflation dilemma i.e it will take alot of inflationary
bucks to ease a deflationary let-down.

I feel strongly now that only a big dip in the U-S dollar is going to help Gold. It would
certainly speed - up any plans to mend ailing financial systems.IMHO.

HAAAAhahahahahahahahah......I love it...time will tell..

AG certainly gave himself an out big enough to drive a truck through at the beginning of his snow job.

And a few I told you so....re Wall & Broad.....accumulation of trouble come down the pike??

D.A.: re your 8:23 post. I like your gambling analogy. How many times can the "powers that be" step in and reset the wheel to prevent that big loss? Especially if your unknown CB benefactor has nearly unlimited hidden resources to pull from? Very likely each time this happens, the stakes will go up. Perhaps this kind of brinksmanship is more limited by skill rather than by reserves. What if the "powers that be" lose their magic touch one day, and last resort freezing of all the mutual fund accounts doesn't work either? And gold has been pushed down as far as it will go? What if a foreign government fails to cooperate in some way?

The more I read on this site, the more I am convinced of the mentality of goldbugs. Before you het up in arms, let me say I have a small portion of my portfolio in gold stocks of small companies because they represented tremendous value at the current levels, so they were bought based on assets, not blue sky. I would never buy gold stocks when the market is ripe for the stuff since you pay through the nose, like stocks in general now. Anyway, back to the psyche of the pro-gold, why do you have to sound so militant, so 'unabomberish', it is no wonder that the masses have fled the notion of gold as value, it speaks ( to me at least ) of an infantile and overly-simplistic view of the interactions between people on planet earth that is economics. "He who has the most gold is king !", is silly in todays age. Men compete through ecomonomic means using their brains as weapons, in that the best way to defeat ( gain economic superiority ) over your fellow man is to make him see that it is in his best interests to advance yours. How is this done through hoarding gold ??, who benefits when I have 1000 ounces of metal in my cellar ???, is this not becomming apparent to you yet ??. You may say that by holding gold it provides the stability to the currency and thus the nation's finances. Well, I would rather that the nation use 'paper' and spread welath quickly to all people, rather than use gold and concentrate power in the hands of the few privilaged who own it. Once again, I state that gold is a suitable investment 'as an industrial/jewelery' metal only. In this light, I analyse gold in terms of yearly production / consumption / scrap rates, etcetera. Gold is not dead, but it's role has become less important. For these reasons/analysis, I am bullish on silver more than gold, depending if you think digital photography is a threat or not, but I don't see the advance comming that rapidly, the retooling period for photshops, price competition vrs traditional methods, etectera. I humbly suggest more of the hardcore goldbugs start analysing gold as a commodity and not an 'altar'. True, if it gets going, some fantasitic gains could be made, espically in the junior area where your investment is highly leveraged. It's worth a portion of your portfolio, but not your servitude.

Stock market fading despite ( temporarily ) strong bonds. The dollar is toast.

Mooney: Yes but not cheap enough for me. Cash was quiet a safe haven these last few days as well as gold. Got your Flag ready?

What do you think the repurcussions of this change in margin deposits?

Date: Wed Oct 29 1997 11:04
6pak ( Raise Margin Deposits @ Comex ) ID#335190:
COMEX to raise margin deposits on gold futures

NEW YORK, Oct 29 ( Reuters ) - New York Mercantile Exchange is to raise margin deposits on its
gold futures contracts traded on its COMEX division from the close of business on Thursday, an
exchange official said.

The margins will be increased to $1,000 from $750 for clearing members, members and hedgers, and to
$1,350 from 1,013 for speculators, the exchange said.

Wonder why Comex hiked gold margin requirements. Someone in power apparently wants to make it tougher for the shorts.

Holdings as of 9/30/97:
GETCHELL GOLD CORP
EURO-NEVADA MINING CORP LTD
PLACER DOME INC
NEWMONT MINING CORP
NEWMONT GOLD CO
MERIDIAN GOLD INC
GREENSTONE RESOURCES LTD
FRANCO-NEVADA MINING CORP LTD
PRIME RESOURCES GROUP INC
BUENAVENTURA ( CIA DE MIN ) CL T
Anyone know anything about Meridian, the new one on the list?
Looks like Domolky is reemphasizing the juniors bit by bit.

I don't have a memebership in SI. If you are an SI member please post this Bema Gold - Arizona Star shareholders rights campaign web site on behalf of Robert Aceti - http://www.dimeinc.com/azs.htm on the Silicon Investor Bema / Arizona Star public discussion sites. Your kind help is appreciated.

Cheers.

The only pick in your portfolio I like is Franco-Nevad. Let me give you a a few MUCH better play: RAY Rayrock Yellowknife, will make you happier

Puetz, I apologize for my premature Kudo's on Monday for a "partial" hit. Turns out that your thesis is not only wrong, but a total unmitigated disastor! If a 550 point fall, 2 market close downs, and the Asian meltdown can't do more damage than this, we obviously have a much stronger market than even I thought we had. I'm buying every dip from this day forward, 5% at a time till I'm 50% invested in Equities. Ntohing couls be more bullish than the results of this week.

What happened to panics causing endless rounds of margin calls Puetz? What happened to "overleverage"?? As I said Monday during the Blackest of moments, NO CRASH is in the cards anytime soon.

Witchita: FSAGX is the Fidelity Select American Gold Fund, not my own portfolio. This is what George S. Cole refers to in his posts as FSAGX, and what some of us use as a part of our gold stock trading program. It can be traded hourly, unlike most mutual funds that are only priced and traded daily at 4pm.
Found Meridian is based in Reno, NV, traded both NY and Toronto, with mines in Idaho, Nevada, and the Andes. It started in 1987, which must have taken guts.

Jerry Favors maintains stock rally would not last beyond this week. Seems it is ending right now. Just look at that chart. http://fast.quote.com/fq/quotecom/chart?symbols=$INDU&time_period=1-minute%20Bars&bars=600?wstype=480%20x%20360%20GIF&chart_type=Close%20Only&colors=Black%25%252C%20Green%20on%20Transparent&vol=Volume&study=Exponential%20moving%20average&ma_period=50&ke

Excerpts from SURVIVING THE COMING MUTUAL FUND CRISIS by Donald Christensen ISBN 0-316-13782-0 published 1994/5

Chapter 10 The Final Scenario

Good financial ideas that become the only idea
Five stages
Skepticism about the idea
Acceptance of the idea
Embracement of the idea ( occured approx 1989-90 )
Mania focused on the idea
Collapse of the idea

Nine milestones on the way to crisis

Financial Displacement - when a sudden shift changes the way people view the world and their future. Financially a change which induces a migration of capital from one kind of asset to another.

Evidence of REcovery from Economic Slump or Jolt - most speculative manias begin after the idea survives a jolt and recovers fairly quickly. Painless recoveries give the impression that risk has been eliminated.

Positive Event Sparks Confidence in the Future - World or national event which seem to eliminate   fears or pessimism about 'out there'. Note the beginning of the BULL market associates with Gulf War Victory and Collapse of Communism in Russia.

New Groups of Inexperiences and Uninformed People Join the Idea - Bandwagon metality created by something called 'informational cascade'. Each group which is successful with the idea inspires another less informed group to join it. Recruiting for the idea finally reaches the most risk averse group, women, who are assured that they will be well off if they join the idea.

Long-established Standards of Value and Risk Assessment are Rejected - 'This is a New Era'. Speculative investment tools such as futures, options and derivatives become common place and are used to provide 'insurance'. Political leaders or those who have no authority in the financial realm begin to voche-safe the markets and prospects.

Proliferation of 'new' & 'innovative' financial products - After past standards are effectively destroyed come obsession with 'new' things. To include 'securatization' or loans and debt, proliferation of IPO's. Use of derivatives to stablize portfolios and funds.

Involvement with the Idea Becomes Fun and Easy way to Success - Pathfinders of the products who warned of problems at the beginning of mania return as converts to its successes. Intoxication with success leads to complacent and carefree attitudes and a 'fun' mentality.

The Financial Idea Becomes an Object of Jokes and Satire - From giddiness to the hilarity of absurdities. Since everyone is involved jokes addresses to mass audiences become understood and entertaining to large diverse audiences.

Revelations of Fraud - Fraud and revelations of manipulation lead to distrust and disillusionment
in the idea and its more forthright organizations.

CRISIS - Manias develop in a teir like fashion and disolve in a similar fashion. The reverse order typically occures with a negative slant on all news and every thing has a negative spin put to it. The "error od optimism" is replaced be the "error of pessimism". Very often the beginning of a mania starts with a loosening of the money supply. The beginning of crisi by the tightening of money supply. All the news that was considered 'good' in the mania will be viewed as 'bad' in the crisis. Layoffs, cutbacks, etc. Companies will be pressed to increase dividends, but this will be met with cold shoulder.

test

openly stated on CNBC that irrational exh. still abounds and it is his feeling that you will not be able to make any money in the stock market for the next five years..he then qualified the statement with a...I might be wrong...talking heads quickly changed subject

This is the first time I've tried to post something. Hope it works. If not, it's an article in Yahoo about Indonesian's selling gold to take profits. Fallout from asian currency crisis.

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/29/z0000_5.html

Seems THEY have drawn a line in the sand at 7500. Gold is 312.55 and firmly under THEIR thumb for now...

Anyone notice the swing in Mexico today.

Mexico IPC Index ^MXX 12:21PM 4719.460 -42.870 -0.90%

The Wichita Lineman ( Gold Price / psyche ) :Put 1000 ounces of metal in my cellar, and I assure you I would benefit - big time. The "nation should use 'paper' and spread wealth quickly to all people", you are right, they should just keep printing money the more out there the better - just watch the value of that Gold in my cellar appreciate.

A country can not keep printing money and financing it's own debt without eventually having a problem. Get your history book out please!

You know that at some point in time the Bartender wants to collect on the the bar tab, you can't keep the party going unless you got the metal.

There are just to many Norms out there - CHEERS!!!

Re: Silver and photography - I just realized, as a result of your post and something that is happening in my business, that people are going both ways. I will be shooting my photos on film and having them both conventionally printed and put on a digital CD @ $.50+ / shot. Please note however that the price of digital cameras are dropping - and with the Asian deflation may fall even more.

VIX chart

Allen ( USA ) ( A long one but thought it was worth it. ) : It was worth it! it's a keeper, Thank you

Lineman - everyone is entitled to their own opinion and shackled by their own pride. Paper bugs and gold bugs alike. Your strategy will work. Others strategy here will work also. Regardless of the rational for these positions gold is low and out of favor. Fundamentals point to supply problems. AU/AG will go up one way or another.

LGB - Go ahead and buy 'em up. If you make out like a bandit then throw a party for us as a way to sooth our discomfort. Or if you get tanked we'll do the same for you, eh?

Both of you - keep everybody here honest. What are your thoughts about Nick@Aussie's TA post from early this AM?

George S. Cole: Who knows? Maybe Comex is starting to worry about the lack of ammo out there for the shorts. It may be a prudent move if they believe that market volatility will increase. If gold was the only market they bumped up the margin requirements, one wonders what little bird they were listening to for inspiration...

Maybe this is one of the little waves preceeding the tsunami...

Nick: Thanks for your trading insights and for your tsunami story. The combination is giving me the shakes....

D.A.: Thanks also for all your insights over the last few days. Have finally got to thinking about silver in the last few days and wonder if there are any other big stockpiles of silver that could be mobilized if it starts going through the roof. One that immediately comes to mind is the US strategic stockpiles. The other is, of course, India - although it is not clear what price would be required to draw the metal out of there.

What would a person on the street answer if ask the question:
If you were offered a $1000 in US dollars or the equivalent amount of Gold which would you take?

I would wager that many would answer with a question:
What is Gold?

Techs look like they are failing to hold gains. Intra-day Dow...

Neophyte :
Very interesting, it seems that holding gold was good for alot of indonesians.


``Indonesians are in a state of shock because prices have never been this high,'' said Iskandar Husin, executive secretary of the Association of Indonesian
Gold and Gems Manufacturers ( APEPI ) . Gold prices are pegged to the U.S. dollar.

He said the price of 24-carat gold had risen to 37,000 rupiah per gram from around 26,000 rupiah in July because of the rupiah's decline to the dollar.

Both Loe and Iskandar said the high price of gold in Indonesia had spurred many people to sell off gold items which they had bought at comparatively
lower values.

``Retailers were offering 32,000 rupiah per gram for gold that was probably bought at 26,000 rupiah,'' Loe said. ``My estimate is that some 20-30 tonnes
of old gold has been sold by the people from August because of this ( price ) opportunity.''

BBL...........

a

I'm disappointed in you two. How come we havn't had any references to the upcoming "Black Moon" on Halloween. For the uninitiated, a "Black Moon" happens quite inrefquently on Halloween, perhaps once in 35 to 40 years. It is when we get 2 New Moons in a month, the second of which is totally dark, ( No Sun luminesence reflecting off the dark Moon due to a straight alignment of Earth, Sun, & Moon, sort of a version of a "reverse" eclispe ) . This "Black Moon" is supposed to be an ultra powerful sign of major changes, shifts, the Old being destroyed ( Market Bull ) , the New being ushered in ( Gold Bull )

To have this happening on Halloween, is a VEWY SCAWY and powerful sign to Astrologists, Shaman's, Crystal Gazers, VooDoo chieftans, Bone casters, and Witches. Soooo, how come we havn't heard anything about the deveastating effects this "Black Moon" will have????? I'm very disappointed in you guys!!

Allen:Nick@Aussie's TA post from early this AM? was great, I read it just before I crashed. Gave me something to sleep on. He should know what he is talking about was my responce. H e has the research, data charts etc. to back up his comments.

Prudential is recommending to their clients to take any up move as an opportunity to reallocate funds - sell.

This demonstrates the situation where a currency devaluation affects gold price and availability. This is a defacto gold standard in action. The currency fluxuates in relationship to physical gold. If you had gold you MAINTAINED your store of wealth. If you had rupiahs you lost. The question I ask is 'At what point do you consider it a good deal to trade your gold for currency?'.

Certainly gold will remain gold. A country whose economy and finacials are in disarray would promote gold to a place of 'store' of value very quickly. If the US dollar ever loses its perception as 'better than gold' then the entire currency/financial systems of this planet would promote gold to a place of 'store'. It would be the bank and those who had it would be the bankers. Silver also but as a junior partner to gold in that role.

This may not happen tomorrow. But sometime it will just like the 1970's. Or maybe worse.

Allen: If I remember, Hick said he was out of everything even metal stocks?

As J.Templeton says, "buy at maximum pessimism". I think gold fits the mold. Why? I can't tell you now, we will know later when it is of course
higher. Just close your eyes and buy. You can always use those glittery
coins as Christmas ornaments in the mean time.

Allen Nick not Hick sorry.

Re your question on Nick's TA. I always appreciate Nick's charts. I think they're quite well done and informative. And he's not far off considering that he stated his charts gave a "buy" signal when the market fell to 6700 in the Spring.

Like many cautious investors, I think the stock market is currently overpriced, HOWever, I still see good buying opportunities ahead when we get further dips. Our economy is WAY too strong right now to support an all out crash. It ain't gonna happen. Buy the dips, I still see 6700 as a great buy opportunity if and when it re-occurs.

However, I'll move in cautiously above that level, 5% at a time, if we get some nice down days to the 7100 level or below. If we get to the 6300 to 6700 range, my 401K will be fully invested in the market. ( And my discretionary investment portfolio will be in silver, Platinum, and/or Silver mining shares )

I'm fully aware that Spin Doctors and Greenspan minions pumped Billions into the market to shore it up Tuesday. But I also realize we didn't have anything like a genuine "panic" in investor sentiment. Only the weak sisters got wasted. At my place of employment, vistually NO ONE sold into the falling market, and no one seemed perturbed. I know 2 guy's who were on the sidelines that agressively bought the market before the ( early ) close. Needless to say, they're quite pleased about now.

LGB
Hope your right about that "Black Moon"
I just bought some more SPX puts and they need all the help they can get. Always good fishing on dark moons.

Yes. Nick said he's completely divested, even of gold stox. I think he's found his vantage point up on that cliff to watch it all happen. Nick@Canberra shared a remarkable personal recolllection of a Tsunami he watched completely destroy Hilo, Hawaii when he was 13 years old. He and his family escaped but many others were killed, some as they toasted the 'wave' at a warf on the bay. At 01:05 they never saw it coming. Also he said it was so loud that you couldn't hear yourself screaming.

Allen your comment, "This may not happen tomorrow. But sometime it will just like the 1970's.
Or maybe worse."
YOU ARE RIGHT ON TARGET
Home Building, Gold, Oil, Nixon/Clinton, interest rates, China etc. V.P.Nelson Aldrich R. ?

GFD: It is unlikely that there will be any silver coming out of India,
at almost any realistic price. It is scattered across of tens of
millions of households in the form of jewelry and handicrafts.
Some of it is literally consumed, in the form of thin foil used to
decorate sweets.

Front - You're welcome.

Panda - FYI, AOL held up well yesterday. No problem getting on, or getting access to sites. Was able to sign on to Kitco most of the time.

Meanwhile ... life goes on. SWC's latest report indicates 1998 will be a very good year ( but for hedges would be a great year ) .

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/97/10/29/swc_y0023_1.html

LGB: I'm soory to see you buying now. I'm probably the one selling to you. Cut out the brokers and floor traders, and we could save commissions. As I mentioned earlier, brokers are delaying margin-call maintenance until the full 5 business days after the calls are being issued. They heavy selling will come between tomorrow and next Monday.

Also, Greenspan said their is no threat of deflation, and the current crisis hurts Japanese banks more than American banks. He's wrong on both counts. He must not realize the virtually all US bank loans during the past few years have, in one way or another, found their way into the stock markets around the world. Falling stock prices will certainly deflate the value of that debt.

A stock market crash began two weeks ago, and ( time-wise ) it's rapidly approaching the height of the crash. Price-wise, there's still a lot further to go to the down-side.

All - I feel that if the crash team can prevent a crash and just guide it into an intense bear market they will feel that they have done their job well.

"Undelying health of the economy" is an often repeated line whose value is that of any incantation - is sooths the nerves of the faithful. They said the same thing in 1929 ( I know you know this, but its really true ) . Political management of people is a fine art these days and we are being managed well. But the financial reality ( as opposed to the economic reality ) is that we are over bought PERIOD. This must be corrected. It will be. What they are trying to do is keep the flight out of the markets at a steady stream. If it becomes a panic flight then they might lose control of people's perception that paper is stable. That would be the next panic hurdle. If that were ever breached on a worldwide level then you would see all hell break loose. This is not like 1987 because there is no Japan in good shape to lend comfort to failing hearts. In fact they are the rotten floor boards of this rig. And when she disintegrates there will be no stopping it.

Avid chatter
...announced on cnbc...ron insana spoke to him..he admits he was wrong and feels horrible...his fund and firm he trades for/with took huge losses and will be shut down...he sold puts expecting a rebound and then got killed on margin calls later in the day. I can't believe he of all people would have been in the 85% losers catagory. For all I know he bought one of my puts late monday.

V. Niederhoffer who has been 'the man' for years as a hedge fund manager reportedly got wiped out on Monday on margin calls to cover naked put selling. He was a day too early...and to think I was angry for not being shorter when I covered on Monday.

just a couple of macro observations: 1. anyone who bought stocks in the past few months ( based upon the indices ) has really not been rewarded. sellers who sold in this vicinity were. So what's the inducement to scramble for new longs at this level? 2. a lot of cash was sponged up in the past couple of days and is now invested. a lot of buy ammo has been spent. what will defend the NEXT sell-off when ( if ) it comes? 3. wed. is often a reversal day. was the early buying this a.m. the result of mf investors buying the news and headlines? I see intc sputtering like last week, i see bonds firm, also like last week.

tomorrow will be the beginning of the end, culminating in what HL Camp has called the mother of all crashes on Monday the 89 calendar day and 62nd trading day after the Aug 6 high in the Dow.

( in australia ) i saw news stands today with banners saying 'What the crash of 97 will mean for you'... and the market had already fully recovered from large losses the day before !!! News has never been outdated so fast.

Al: Re: "but ay maximum pessimism". I don't see any pessimism here.
The bottom is always just around the corner. I see a turnaround
coming in oh, about 17 mintes.

Panda: EBN highly confusing lately. Particularly bad since at times this week it's been the only site with current quotes for traders that I've been able to access. Here are two addresses I've glomed from the site: feedback@ebn.co.uk and multimedia@ebn.co.uk . They seem to prefer the second one, but you might have more luck with the first.

Well don't be sorry, I havn't bought yet! And you STILL havn't answered my Black Moon question dammit! ( Lot's more powerful than an Eclipse! )

Red alert! We are having trouble assimilating this human designated
LGB. Still wants to buy dips. Send backup to convince him that
resistance is futile.

Goldborg: Warning! Subject may be Romulan! Suggest application of platinum/palladium test electrode to see if he responds with arousal greater than human index norm.

John Crudele explains mechanism and how it was applied yesterday. Pilfered from the Fiend's Super Bear Page. http://nypostonline.com/business/257.htm

Whichita, thanks for a great post. The difference between economics, politics, and religion gets blurry for a goldbug ( which I think I am becoming ) . If we are to benefit from mob psychology in the marketplace, we need to remember that the rest of the world may not view the yellow as do we.

DOW broke 7500, into the red and heading south ( delayed quotes )

It seems the boys who went out to lunch today will return to their
trading desks with an uimmediate cas of indigestion!
MELTDOWN IN PROGRESS!!!

they are using the the futures as their control knob, only problem is they have a flwed model of the system. As I have said previously the equations come nowhere close to approximating the turbulent system they are dealing with. Just watch how the fight and frig with it until it escapes their control...not to mention the public faith, hey that's what they're actually trying to control, this is what they don't realise...it's not just a market it's the thoughts, emotions of humanity they are trying to manipulate....1984

I have always viewed the ownership of Gold as a hedge against a downturn in my interest sensitive business. I am an Architect, very much at the mercy of the economy's impact on the construction industry. I have found that over the years if I buy the mining stocks at their lows, I will have a nice cushion to fall back on when business turns to crap. I have no control over when they go up or down; but if I buy them low enough I don't really care, because, unfortunately sooner or later they are going to go up and my business will be in the toilet again.

After reviewing the charts, the turmoil in the currency/equity markets, consumer cash shortage, 2.4 unemployment rate, Home permits vs. sales, Oil / Mid East problems, stock market volume / volatility/ advances to declines, and AG's comments - the price of Gold and Natural Resources looks pretty good. My business is good now, but if any of my clients have substantial losses in the market or if interest rates start moving up, it will start heading towards the wash room. I have a new client that said in passing that he lost $200K in the 87 crash, and that he learned his lesson now he has a financial advisor - that did not comfort me.

I have to leave now. I have to go prepare for the rest of this storm, I feel as if I am in the eye of a Tornado with more of the storm to come. The market volume @ 1:38pm is large and the markets have all turned down. Later, I have to go close the Shutters.

Ted your 20:58 post of yesterday from Oct. 5, "Skeptical Investor" telling us why there's no upside to stocks now. It's an interesting article, but what I'd REALLY be interested in would be articles from "Skeptical Investor" from say, October 5, 1996, 1995, 1994, 1993, 1992. I wonder if we had any upside potential for gains in the market back then? ( According to the Bearish Skeptical Investor )

ALL: I don't remember precisely where I read it, but an article on the Plunge Protection Team some months ago asserted that it's purpose was to prevent disorderly declines ( a crash ) . The article specifically stated that the team would not try to prevent bear markets per se, even severe ones. AG and RR are extremely bright and undoubtedly know that overvalued markets cannot be propped up forever.

Full text of Greenie's comments. http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/29/z0000_z00_36.html

Banner Headlines in *yesterday's* Dominion Newspaper, from Wellington, NZ's Capital:

DOWN DOWN DOWN

*today's* Banner Headlines

UP UP UP

showing little imagination, but acknowledging my mate AJ Hackett's contribution to understanding Markets.. AJ was one of the inventors of Bungee Jumping.....Once tried to sell me the cross-bow he tried to use to fire a rope over the Statue of Liberty's arm, he had just Bungeed off the Eifel Tower being videoed and wanted to cap that feat, so off to NY Bungee off the Statue of Liberty, he had just lifted the cross-bow when he was arrested so had to do some fancy talking.

Volatility like this is killing some very "clever" players. Anyone believe we've stopped bouncing yet?

Think of the upside to the volaility of the past 3 days. All the capitol gains taxes on the multiple Trillion shares sold HAS to reduce our Fed. deficit! AS well as being anti-inflationary, and somewhat growth slowing ( though M2 increases, however, mots of that will find it's way back to the market , some maybe even to GOLD! )

Well, it looks like they had to concede 7500 to the realists. Seems now llike they are attempting to "construct" a shallow downtrend for the day to contain the damage...

Who you calling human you Space Nazi!

Gold recovering nicely at 13:57... $314.35 only down 1.35...

they maybe bright but I am skeptical as to whether they realise the enormity and complexity of what they are toying with. Everytime they stop panics on the way down, they reassert a "bottom" that all the other trading programs use blindly...assuming this is a real market led bottom. So the party continues, if they have no TOP stopppers either then the trading programs will just crank away buying to heaven.
So my guess is they probably have top stops as well, which leads us to the horrible thought that we don't have a market at...we are just watching an electronic game between computer programs ( with artificial intelligence most likely, this is the best money can buy ) who are learning that they can jump up and down wildly creaming it off both ways.
Maybe Gold has no place in this, but when this realisation dawns on the "investor" whoever the hell he/she is anymore, then all bets are off.
Systemic failure...utter confidence loss in the "market" is not a pleasant contemplation, but when you have economists, financial types half learning the power of equations with out seeing their total potential...it's the nuclear bomb all over again. Einstein was a pacifist he never thought his equation would lead to a weapon of mass destruction but the management of his thoughts by others led to this.
I toss and turn at night worrying what the equations I'm creating will lead to in the future, but do you just stop, are we benefiting humanity as a net total. When I see people behaving as now I have an utter loss of faith in humanity to manage the revelations of the wonders of the universe through mathematics and science...maybe I should have done art.

Good morning DAK!

Relax Kiwi, if articifial intelligence is driving the market, it'll just keep going up! After all, the computers benefit from the technology explosion. "Open the Pod Bay doors Hal.....Hal....OPEN THE POD BAY DOORS!"

Re-Sleptical Investor: It's new this year so can't tell ya about previous years....and by the way I'm ( for the ten thousandth time ) still in stocks and have been consistantly for about 13 years....You back in yet??

I'm still on the sidelines Ted but wish I'd have baught in Monday! More opportunities to come though. Not to worry.

Wednesday October 29 1:45 PM EST

China to sign $3 billion Boeing contract Thursday

WASHINGTON, Oct 29 ( Reuters ) - China will sign a contract with Boeing ( BA - news ) aircraft on Thursday to purchase 50
aircraft at a cost of $3 billion, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday.

The official, briefing reporters after President Bill Clinton met Chinese President Jiang Zemin, said the contract would be
signed on Thursday at the Commerce Department.

All-What do you make of the following Wall Street Journal, front page article from this Tuesday ( Are all the books cooked???? ) -Anyone??:

.....the 1997 fiscal deficit is just $22.6 billion, its lowest level since 1974...Washington's bean counters can not fully explain how $46 billion - money largely responsible for shrinking the deficit in this fiscal year ...ended up in the Treasury's coffers. .....

Treasury official call it "the revenue surge" . Some economists call it "the $46 billion question". ......

But "whatever it is , it is confounding everyone," says James Blum, deputy director of the Congressional Budget Office.......
.."Something is not in order" , offers John Carl Sholtz, Treasury's deputy assistant for tax analysis. ......The mystery has major consequences for public policy. ...
But for now, the budget estimators are sure only of this:Most of the mystery money flowed in during the past few months, not from taxes on regular wages or on corporations but from unanticipated income tax-payments from individuals. But on what kind of income and from whom?? .... -
-
-

If you think there are more opportunities to come,I take it you think the stock market is going to go down more...am I correct?? Tort: Thankx for the jokes!!!

Underlying economic fundamentals cited by Rubin, Greenspan, & Clinton are of course still inplace. However, they are not very positive fundalmentals. 1 ) Thailand now has see through buildings just like Texas after the S & L crash. It took them a long time to recover. 3 ) Lead by Thailand & Indonesia, SE Asia is in deep trouble. It may take $ 50 billion to bail them out. 4 ) Japanese banks are a disaster. They hold the notes on half of Thailand & one third of Indonesia's bad paper. 5 ) China has serious banking problems.

Am expecting a large Japanese bank to fail. It will be a surprise announcement. The lucky Japanese tax payers are going to pay for the mess with the little tigers. Their resession is going to turn into a depression. England too has very large banking exposure in Asia through Hong Kong. Going to be alot of bad debts.

As Trillions of fiat money race around the globe in search of safety, all the investment vehicles will be tried. Some money is even now finding a home with gold bullion. As the money managers see that at least they are not losing money with gold, they will shift larger percentages into it.

This reallocation will finally cause monetary demand for gold. The monetary demand volume will push gold much higher from these levels.

Yes Ted ,like many here I think the Tuesday rally was pump money from large corporate buybacks, Fed feeding to the stock specialists so they'd have unlimited liquidity when no buy orders were around, etc. Unlike many here, I think that the prospects for a true crash are virtually non existant gicen all the economic fundamentals we have going at the moment. More down dips to come, botton side at the extreme would be around 6000 but I think it'll be much higher than that.

S.Korea Kia Chairman Resigns Over Insolvency
http://www.yahoo.com/headlines/971029/business/stories/kia_1.html

Greenspan Sees Benefit From Market Turmoil
http://www.yahoo.com/headlines/971029/business/stories/greenspan_3.html
"Provided the decline in financial markets does not cumulate, it is quite conceivable that a few years hence we will look back at this episode, as we now look back at the 1987 crash, as a salutary event in terms of its implications for the macroeconomy," he added, referring to the huge fall in stock prices 10 years ago.

Analysts: Market Gyrations Won't Move Rates
http://www.yahoo.com/headlines/971029/business/stories/fed_1.html

NYSE to Examine Trading Curbs
http://www.yahoo.com/headlines/971029/business/stories/curbs_1.html

U.S. stocks firm but Iraq tension casts a shadow
http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/29/intc_x000_1.html

COMEX copper higher at midday as spreads narrow
http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/29/y0021_y00_7.html

NY precious metals mixed at midday, gold slips
http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/29/y0023_z00_24.html

SEC still assessing US stock market moves - Levitt
http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/29/z0000_z00_31.html
Levitt told the subcomittee that overall the market's functioned very well on Monday, saying ``the clearance and settlement systems functioned properly, and all margin calls were met.'' - NOT

POLL-European strategists say stocks may slip more
http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/29/z0000_z00_25.html
``The crisis on the Far East markets is structural and will not disappear after one single rebound,'' said Giampaolo Trasi, analyst at Imi-Sigeco.
``I think were are seeing a bit of a false bounce. Volatility in Hong Kong will continue in the near term. A good day in Wall street could easily be followed by a sell-off,'' he said.
And others noted that any further dips would present an excellent buying opportunity for those looking for cheap stocks.
``If ( markets ) were to come away we'd be a firm advocate of the 'buy on dip' strategy. And boy, did we get a dip yesterday. I'd be quite happy to advise clients to start to dip a toe in again. If they'd had time to get a whole leg in yesterday, then they'd have done very well,'' said Robert Buckland, UK strategist at HSBC James Capel. ------Alias LGB-------

This story shows clearly that the mere rumor of a stock buy back by a giant like Intel , with the intent to prop of the market overall, now gives us conclusive proof that Soros, the Rothschilds, Tri-Lateralists, One Worlders, CB devils, and Black choppers are running the financial world.

Wednesday October 29 1:57 PM EST

Intel off, buyback rumor quashed,price cuts

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 29 ( Reuters ) - Shares of Intel Corp fell Wednesday after the company quashed a rumor that it would
announce a big stock buyback and after it cut prices on certain chips by a bit more than expected.

Traders said Intel's shares soared Tuesday, amid an overall stock market rally, on market rumors that the company would
launch a big stock repurchase.

``There was a rumor they were going to announce a major new stock buyback,'' one technology trader said.

But late Tuesday Intel said it had no plans to increase its current buyback program.

The buyback rumors circulated after International Business Machines Corp ( IBM ) helped spark a major rally in the Dow
industrials by announcing it would spend $3.5 billion on a new share repurchase plan.

Intel's shares were off 3-15/16 to 81 in heavy trading of over 20 million shares.

Traders said the stock was being hurt by the combination of Intel quashing the buyback rumors and analysts' comments that
some of Intel's price cuts were steeper than expected.

On Monday Intel announced regular quarterly price cuts on its Pentium chips ranging from 12 to 24 percent.

It also said it had cut prices on its chips for mobile products, such as its 133 megahertz Pentium chips, by as much as 40
percent, which was a bit more than some analysts had expected.

Good call ( 9:26- "gold up the limit" ) whats that minus 2.10 ( hahahahaha ) you are a FOOL and maybe you'd think a little better if you DID drink or better yet do some crack!! Dow up 52 idiot! bla bla bla

Nick ( 07:45 ) Interesting post. Haven't been able to post here for 24 hours. While I agree that the big "comeback" had all the flavour of a good old ramp ( similar to what Hong Kong did last Friday ( Oct. 24 ) , I must point out that the big sell off at the opening was inevitable.

Don't forget, the market closed half an hour early the day before - after falling 200 points in 30 minutes. There were a lot of sell orders waiting to be filled, and that's what drove the Dow down 190 points early.

Just woke up ( 5:40 AM here ) . Off to read the turgid prose of AG

kiwi G'day mate perhaps Arts might've been better, Naaah, you love this sh!t, but in case you need a justification to do a sociology degree:

Q. What is a market anyway?

A. A group of Smart, Highly paid People with a Common Economic Purpose and the Collective Intelligence of a Baby Trout.

Martin Baker *Orion* 1995 London.


BBWWLLZZZZZZZZZzzzzzz

Cyb Jeddak
From avid
for your eyes only - jap bank in top 5 in very serious trouble - think our currency reserve kitty can handle their banking system - 5 of 6 biggesta - 8 of 12, etc, etc


Colliers expects property values to fall 15-20% in Bangkok, 10% in KL and 5% in Jakarta in a year
http://www.asia1.com.sg/biztimes/3/fprop21.html

Most analysts and brokers say that trading will be volatile next week and a highly selective trading strategy is needed
http://www.asia1.com.sg/biztimes/3/fpfin01.html

With Dow tumbling, analysts suggest going into Europe govt securities
http://www.asia1.com.sg/biztimes/3/fmony31.html

Going by anecdotal incidents, the majority shareholders of at least three to four dozen listed companies could be facing a liquidity squeeze in one form or another
http://www.asia1.com.sg/biztimes/3/views03.html

We bring you in-depth coverage of the chaos in the financial markets, why it happened, and what's next
http://www.asia1.com.sg/biztimes/3/nfrnt01.html

Whether they are a force for good or evil, hedge funds -- not central banks -- rule, says Patrick Daniel
http://www.asia1.com.sg/biztimes/3/nfrnt03.html

Year 2000 bug may block Aussie bank mergers
http://www.asia1.com.sg/biztimes/3/cfinc02.html

Individual Investor sentiment article, post mini crash.

Tuesday October 28 7:33 PM EST

Individuals Don't Bail Out, They Buy Stocks To Take Advantage Of Bargains In
Stock Market

SACRAMENTO, Calif.-- ( BUSINESS WIRE ) --Oct. 28, 1997--Individual investors bravely rode through Monday's financial
storm on Wall Street and re-appeared as buyers Tuesday, yet again showing their importance in the financial markets.

``Every report I heard in the media testified to the loyalty and financial strength of individual investors,'' said Steve Chanecka,
President of Informed Investors, Inc., whose firm has helped educate investors since 1993.

``Monday there was no glut of sell orders at the major retail brokerage houses, but today individuals looking to buy stocks
faced major delays because brokers were besieged with buy orders,'' Chanecka said. ``It shows that despite public companies'
nearly total fascination with looking pretty to institutional investors and analysts, they ought to spend more time telling their
story to individual investors.''

Informed Investors organizes analyst-style conferences featuring executives of public companies giving presentations as they do
to money managers and analysts. Its next event is the 1997 Electronics & Technology Forum Sunday Nov. 2 in San Diego. It
runs from 8 a.m. -noon at the Mission Valley DoubleTree. The cost is $15 pre-paid, $20 at the door. A continental breakfast is
included at 7:30.

HighRise re yours of 13:41

Interested in your comment about how your "at the mercy of the economy's impact on construction industry". I used to be in construciton, we balanced our ups and downs with a metals scrap yards ( Junk Yards ) it worked pretty good. When construction revenues decreased junk yard revenues increased. Good luck in the market.

Nick, thanks for the info on the Japanese banks. We of course do have currency that we could send them in bales. Hoping that the Japanese taxpayers are going to pay not us. This simply puts more stress on the paper money system. Am thinking that the world's currencies are being exposed now for their worth.

I haven't jump ship yet. Going to hang on till Monday, then I will start heading for the plank.

Avid chatter
oh oh rumours of a large brazilian bank collapse.....
just noticed a DBC headline: "U S State depy says Iraq ban has 'potetially grave consequences'."


'I daren't tell my parents how much I've lost'
http://www.scmp.com/news/template/templates.idc?artid=19971029005218038?=fp&template=Default.htx&maxfieldsize=1972

Warnings abound about stock-price levels
http://www.thestar.com/editorial/money/971029BUS02_FI-CRANE29.html>http://www.thestar.com/editorial/money/971029BUS02_FI-CRANE29.html

Visitor influx strains Internet stock services
http://www.scmp.com/news/template/templates.idc?artid=19971029005218017?=hk&template=Default.htx&maxfieldsize=1985

"It's a chance to buy today. A good chance," urged Ben Lau Wing-fat, watching the progress of the 2,000 Hang Seng Bank shares he had just acquired.
http://www.thestar.com/editorial/money/971029BUS02_FI-CRANE29.html

Lower pay rises, recession feared
Provisional legislators painted a gloomy picture for workers, forecasting lower pay rises.
http://www.scmp.com/news/template/templates.idc?artid=19971029005218050?=hk&template=Default.htx&maxfieldsize=2463

Nick -- Dow jones wires at 14:03 had a headline saying that the Dow industrials turned down due to a rumor circulating about a Brazilian bank collapsing.

Nick -- Dow News 15:36 confirms troubled Brazilian bank ( s ) talking to cenbank from source.

Leading securities firms urge bank reform passage
http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/29/mer_mwd_t_1.html

CBOT wants to change DJIA circuitbreaker rule
http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/29/y0004_z00_6.html

US experts like Greenspan's renewed rate warning
http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/29/z0000_z00_44.html

Gold stocks still under considerable pressure. XAU off 3% and HUI down 2%.

Panda
There is also supposed to be a failure in one of Japan's top five.

Psssss wanna sell some naked puts???

Nick -- :- ) )

I was looking at an article from USA TODAY on
the prices of things today versus 10 years ago.
One thing that struck me was how well gold has
performed over the last 10 years. On Oct. 19,
1987, Gold was at $480/ounce, and today, 10 years
later it is at $313/ounce. Now, if you are
a prudent investor, you realize you have to
hold on to some things for 5-10 years to realize
a profit, and, if you are buying gold, 40% swings
either direction above or below where you got
in should not bother you, or you are not a
true investor.

I finally figured out why you people will never
learn. You can be broken down conveniently
into three groups.

1. You never held gold and are not currently
holding gold - Therefore, you have little concern
over where the price goes and you are just
screwing with people on this forum and should not
be taken seriously.

2. You hold gold or gold stocks but are never
planning to sell, therefore all of your losses
are simply paper losses, and your children will
have to deal with issues of worth when they
inherit your stash. You also should not be
taken seriously.

3. Vronsky.

Read more about this triumvirate in my next
newsletter, where I expound about the coming
explosion in gold. The nice thing about
writing a gold newsletter is that you never
have to update your material. This particular
newsletter is actually recycled from 1989.

~735 million shares traded so far on the NYSE. Wow! What's wrong with this picture? Dow up ~7 points TRIN =1.520 VIX = 32.57

327.5 million shares down volume
388 million shares up volume

1951 Advancers
1097 Decliners

Brazil Bovespa Index^BVSP 3:52PM 9818 -629 -6.02%

Psssss wanna buy a cheap bank???

BANKS * DERIVATIVES * VOLATILITY = FAILURES

Count the bodies.

story came out at 3:02 it's a rumour of a major brazilian bank failure and apparently it has spooked the market somewhat as there is fear that it may lead to a divestiture of US equity assets......the bank is nameless in the article

Margin calls come due tommorrow, looks like forced liquidations begin tommorrow!

The markets are still very jittery, but the buyers
are still there for equities. Until there is some
real demand for gold by more than the usual assortment
of gold bugs, I can't see gold heading above $345.

Maybe a bank failure or two will do the trick -- but
one Brazilian and one Japanese bank failure is not
enough to scare me into a equity selling panic.

Now if we're talking multiple mjr banks in a single
county -- then some real fear will start brewing.
Since the CitiBank debacle a few years ago, most
U.S. banks have tried to protect themselves from
foreign currency/bank failures -- so I don't anticipate
any real collapse in the U.S. in the near term.

It seems to me we have had two very seasoned traders confess to massive losses today. For each of them there are probably hundreds to thousands of meddling to mediocre traders working for banks who also were whipsawed in like fashion. This is a recipe for disaster of the highest order. Banks represent stability to most people. When they fail it usually paralysis large sums of money and many people who are immobilized while auditors and government managers sort out the mess. Remember our ( US ) S&L crisis? Some people were trapped by bank failures for months before they received something back from the reconning. This will be a world wide crisis. Who will pick up the pieces???

Japan's Hashimoto concerned about consequences of stock market slide


TOKYO, Oct 29 ( AFP ) - Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto raised
fears Wednesday about further problems for Japan's already troubled
economy following the slide on global stock markets.
"I am not worried about the share price fluctuations but I am
concerned about the consequences," Hashimoto was quoted as saying by
Jiji Press.
"I'm not sure whether the slide has been halted ( and ) in that
sense I am paying attention to movements in Hong Kong," he said.
The Hong Kong stock exchange bounced back 17.3 percent in
morning trade Wednesday bouyed by a rally on Wall Street before
settling at 14.6 percent before its midday close, after losing 13.7
percent on Tuesday.
Kyodo News quoted the prime minister as saying he was concerned
that the plunge on world markets Monday and Tuesday could lead to a
credit crunch, which would have a negative impact on the Japanese
economy.
"I am concerned that private financial institutions could turn
reluctant to lend money and rush to demand payment from those who
owe them money," Hashimoto told reporters.
Hashimoto said he would instruct government-backed lenders, such
as Japan Development Bank, to provide funds if needed to the private
sector.
The key Nikkei stock average of the Tokyo Stock Exchange rallied
564.93 points, or 3.5 percent, to 16,877.62 in the morning session
Wednesday, regaining much of the sizeable 725.67-point slump the
previous day.
A record crash on Wall Street on Monday sent stock markets
around the world into a tailspin, but overnight gains in New York
paved the way for recovery.

GCZ7 on quote come looks good 1 min chart shows spike up to $325.80
Portent of things to come? ( :o}}}}}

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/24/y0004_z00_23.html

Bernie ( Balancing Act ) : Exactly, I just batten down the hatches a little more - bought 300 ABX and 300 HM. I am not sure of the exact window we are in: 30 vs 37, 73 vs 80, 87 vs 94, 90 vs 97, My point is the same as others who understand Gold, if you buy low you at some point in time will be able to sell high. It does rebound and when it does it does provide some comfort when my phone is quite. Deflation vs. Inflation I don't know, AG said that the majority on the Fed are in the camp that the concern is Inflation and he is the man with the finger on the trigger. The US has to keep selling it's paper or buy it. Any way I look at it that means Inflation. Of course, they could always have a War to mask it all - the debt and the scandals.
By the way anymore news on the President's bent thingy. Kind of hidden now isn't it?

aurophile: your 15:47 Post. I think you left something out. It looks like it says only Vronsky's posts on this site are worth taking seriously. At least, how about yourself? Are you included?
all: I don't know if the Kitco bearish sentiment on the market is right, but the proponents of this are experts in TA, and should be taken very seriously. If there are indeed five dead Japanese banks, and the Japanese people will not ( or cannot ) come up with the bailout funds, we might suddenly have $300 or so billion extra US dollars on our shores! That could do it. However, the Japanese need cash right now, so that $300 billion would not go into gold, unfortunately. Don't forget that in 1929 the gold rally began after the crash! Gold stocks dropped before and during the 1929 crash.

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/29/ibm_intc_2.html

Dear George.....

you're looking at the wrong market my friend. It's not down but up at TSE for the Gold stocks.....Of course, what would an American exchange know about the area north of the 46th parallel? Anyways, if you want to get a nicer view, look north .... it's only snowing on the south side of the streets today ( :- ) ) )

TTFN