Gold Editorials & Commentary

Which Rx for this market tumble did you prefer? Was it the multi-month delayed downgrade of the PC outlook from a major firm on the Street (after we had warned the sector was topping in the first part of this year); th

GENERAL COMMENTS: Although Black Box Forecasts has perhaps been too eager in the past to sound taps for this 17-year bull market, the newsletter has scored nothing but bullseyes in predicting what the Fed would do next. Are they going to raise rates?

Executive Summary

Chart Symmetry is designed around the observation that prices tend to change direction along certain preferred gradients. New readers are advised to read the first article in this series to discover how Chart Symmetry works.

With Alice Rivlin unchained. . . from the Federal Reserve Board, one more "dove" has flown the coup of those inclined to believe the "this time is different" scenario regarding business cycles.

"We're dying from a thousand knives" beefed an Internet trader after this past week's Net stock bash that buried investors for losses in stocks like amazon.com, already down 50% from its all-time high, yahoo.com, down 36%, and AOL, down a similar percentage.

Broad market at crossroads; do or die for Internets

The story of money is, to some extent, a story of man's quest for ease and convenience. Direct bartering of one good for another, more highly prized, was so inconvenient that it was doomed to failure from its onset.

Much has been written over perhaps as much as the past 5-6 years about the unreasonable and unsustainable levels reached by stock prices on Wall Street.

A little-known gold miner in South Africa boosts the potential of being one of the most profitable gold mining companies in the world. Correspondingly, it may well become one of the world's most lucrative investments, once the gold bull begins.

Out of fuel and enthusiasm. . . per forecast; the market has been under pressure for some days now overall.

The drawn-out basing pattern throughout the speculative gold stock sector continues with some gold stocks experiencing incipient bull markets—a foreshadow of what is to come over the entire sector.

Chart Symmetry is designed around the observation that prices tend to change direction along certain preferred gradients. New readers are advised to read the first article in this series to discover how Chart Symmetry works.

[Note: The following is the second installment of a four-part series based on the John Kenneth Galbraith classic, The Great Crash 1929, and the parallel events of today's stock market.]

While it was a difficult week to make money as a bear, it was one of the more encouraging weeks in some time as fundamental developments strongly shifted in our direction. For the week, the Dow lost 84 points, or less than 1%.

Depressing Disparity

Strength in T-Bonds. . . followed only a minor hiccup in the wake of our forecast move this week by the Federal Reserve Board's Open Market Committee.

I made an uncharacteristically bullish prediction here six weeks ago when I wrote that the Dow Industrials would tack on 2,000 points by mid-summer if Asia's economies began to lift from their long dirge.

Final Part

Final Observations To Gold In A Deflationary Economy:

Onward And Upward

Last Month I demonstrated how an investor could have greatly enhanced the performance of his or her portfolio most of this century, by allocating 15% to Homestake Mining Company.

Incongruities . .

One of the timeless maxims known to almost every student of human affairs is that history always repeats, and that those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them.

CHANNEL SURFING recently, I caught Louis Rukeyser delivering one of those metaphorical gibes (for which he is deservedly beloved) to the groin of his favored patsy, Gloomy Gus.

Chart Symmetry is designed around the observation that prices tend to change direction along certain preferred gradients. New readers are advised to read the first article in this series to discover how Chart Symmetry works.

Morale boosting rallies . . . were the centerpiece of Wednesday's fairly impressive comeback; an advance no doubt emphasizing a liquidity-drivencharacter of this market, more than recent ones, as a matter of fact.

The Honorable Arthur Levitt

Chairman

The Securities and Exchange Commission

450 Fifth St, NW

Washington, DC 20549

Dear Chairman Levitt:

It is becoming more and more evident with each passing week that the gold market, along with commodities in general, have seen a bottom and will continue to consolidate or move higher in the weeks and months ahead.

I have written extensively over the past two years about precious metals leasing and its manipulative effect on the markets.

After a month that saw more good earnings, robust growth in Gross Domestic Product, a soaring Dow Industrial Average-- up 10% for the month of April, the best performance in a single month since October 1982--the first quarter of 1999 appears great on the surfa