Dear Friends, Gold closed in New York at 323.30. You can see that Friday's turmoil added greatly to the price that day, and there was a twitch upward on the Sydney market this morning which seems to have been slapped back a bit. http://kitco.com/charts/livegold.html
The Dow was very low in early afternoon trading, but has recovered some of its lost ground. I see it on bloomberg.com at 7835.19. I suppose I could wait until the stock market closes, but as the gold market is closed for a few hours, I'm sure y'all can get the data together to calculate the ratio on yer own. A good look at the reason this ratio seems worth noting: http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_02/milhouse062002.html I note that it appears this month of July that the Dow is doing most of the work, rather than the price of gold. I am informed this morning that about 25% of the Dow value has been lost since March 2002. That seems like a steep decline in anyone's book. It seems noteworthy that today's low on the Dow was much lower than the dip following 11 September 2001. In terms of trigger events, the bankruptcy of WorldCom would seem to be a substantial event. The rather obvious political implications of the blaming of accountants for all the economy's ills in order to point blame away from the money manipulators may be considered a related trigger. Mr. Saville's chart does an excellent job of showing where things have been in terms of my favorite ratio. The current ratio is one we saw on the way up back in late 1997 or so. In terms of then-dollars the Dow reached reached 7835 about mid-year in 1997, for the first time, on the way up. Of course, the dollar in 1997 was a different beast than the dollar today. The 2002 dollar is significantly inflated, and weaker than the 1997 dollar. It buys less. That lack of a consistency messes up nearly every accounting function in comparing past performance to current performance, which is why setting things into gold-priced figures is so helpful not only in making comparisons but also in identifying trends, especially the starting point of a trend reversal. No doubt the Dow may take another rest from its downward plunge. It does seem destined to go much lower, most especially as the price of gold seems stymied in its attempts to go much higher. The talking heads on television are still yammering about a "long term strategy" and advocating holding on to what you've got in stocks, even as they tick lower. I should note that my mother received the same advice about her investment in WorldCom. She bought at $45 on the advice of her broker, and sold at $8 against his advice, making a small fortune out of a much bigger one. But, at least she was able to sell at $8 - and didn't ride the price into oblivion. If you are looking at your portfolio and seeing significant cratering in its value, you may wish to consider selling out of your "blue chips" and converting to gold or silver, or some combination of both. Platinum may also be a good investment. Feel free to contact me [EMAIL PROTECTED] or my chief financial officer [EMAIL PROTECTED] to set up a program for converting from equities to precious metals. Regards, Jim http://cambist.net/ --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
