Ted Butler: A clear parallel

4:25p ET Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Prompted by Barrick Gold's recent announcement that it has closed the hedge book of its operating mines (but not the hedge book of its prospective mines), silver market analyst Ted Butler's new commentary takes a long view of precious metals hedging. He calls it "an epic management blunder" -- and it well may be so, if viewed only from the standpoint of most mining company shareholders. But if a mining company has a special connection to a government that wants to control the gold price more or less surreptitiously, the blunder may prove forgivable in certain circles.

Butler's was the first loud voice against what quickly proved to be a scheme of market manipulation. In his new essay he argues that the difference between the manipulation of the gold price and the manipulation of the silver price is mainly that the gold price manipulation now has been mostly unwound. That would leave the bigger potential with Butler's favorite metal, silver -- to which many gold bugs are partial as well, if sometimes secretly so.

Butler's new commentary is headlined "A Clear Parallel" and you can find it at GoldSeek's companion site, SilverSeek, here:

http://news.silverseek.com/TedButler/1178651460.php

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

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Join GATA
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World Gold, PGM, and Diamond Investment Conference
in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Sunday and Monday, June 17 and 18, 2007

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