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Daily Dispatches

British banks told to plan for 40% crash in housing prices

Section: Daily Dispatches

By Patrick Hosking
The Times, London
Thursday, November 16, 2006

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9063-2455507,00.html

Banks in the United Kingdom have been ordered by financial regulators to assess how they would cope in the event of house prices crashing by 40 percent. The instruction to include a housing slump scenario in their stress-testing models comes after the Financial Services Authority found that some banks were failing to include gloomy enough assumptions in their modelling.

The paranoids were right -- there WAS a conspiracy against gold

Section: Daily Dispatches

Even Paranoids Have Enemies:
Is There a Gold Conspiracy?

By Robert Appel
Luxe Magazine

(A supplement to the National Post, Toronto)

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

In the early 1990s, I recall, there was a front-page story in Canada's Financial Post (progenitor to our present National Post) featuring interviews with professional traders from the international gold desks. All were of one view. "Unusual activity" was taking place; the gold market was not as it should have been. Something was up.

China to steer gold mining toward bigger companies

Section: Daily Dispatches

From China Daily, Beijing
via People's Daily Online
Thursday, November 30, 2006

http://english.people.com.cn/200611/30/eng20061130_326804.html

China, the world's fourth-biggest gold producer, will raise the threshold for foreign investors in the gold mining sector to improve the sustainability of the industry, a regulator said.

According to a source from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China will impose restrictions on small foreign investors in the sector while welcoming larger ones. The source declined to reveal what measures will be taken, only saying an announcement would be made before the end of the year.

Billiton backtracks from CEO's comments on gold mine acquisition

Section: Daily Dispatches

From CBSMarketWatch.com
Thursday, November 30, 2006

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/bhp-billiton-says-gold-still/story...

SYDNEY, Australia -- Gold remains a non-core commodity for BHP Billiton (BHP) and the world's largest miner is not looking to buy gold assets, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

She was responding to media reports Wednesday quoting Chief Executive Chip Goodyear that BHP is underexposed in gold and would consider buying a gold mine.

NY Fed's market-rigging post goes to Goldman Sachs economist

Section: Daily Dispatches

From The King Report
By Bill King
M. Ramsey King Securities
Burr Ridge, Illinois
Thursday, November 30, 2006

http://www.mramseyking.com/thekingreport.html

Goldman's former chief economist, Bill Dudley, will become the New York Fed's market operations chief. According to The Wall Street Journal, "The New York Fed's markets chief is manager of the central bank's 'open market account,' responsible for implementing the central bank's interest-rate decisions through operations in the bond and money markets. He also overseas foreign-exchange intervention on behalf of both the Fed and Treasury. ...

Peter Hambro's age-old message: Ingot we trust

Section: Daily Dispatches

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
The Telegraph, London
Thursday, November 30, 2006

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/11/30/ccgold...

Peter Hambro whips an Edwardian ten-shilling note out of his wallet, then a shabby note for two francs Belges, before slamming down a war-time papier for 50 centimes issued by the City of Lille in 1917.

"Absolutely worthless promises," he says triumphantly.

John Rubino: World suspects manipulation, and bubbles are everywhere

Section: Daily Dispatches

10:53p ET Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

John Rubino, partner with James Turk in authorship of the book "The Coming Collapse of the Dollar," has written two essential essays this week.

The first, "The Whole World Is Watching," describes how market manipulation, derided as crackpot conspiracy theory when GATA began complaining about it in 1999, is now widely suspected and even taken for granted and so is losing effectiveness as it gets found out. You can find this essay at Gold-Eagle here:

Wits Gold: A long-term option on gold

Section: Daily Dispatches

10:13p ET Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Wits Gold is among GATA's biggest corporate supporters and the Wits Gold story is as dear to GATA as the company is, for the Wits Gold story is gold's own story since GATA's founding in January 1999.

It started with the belief that gold's value was being obscured by surreptitious manipulation of the gold market by financial houses and central banks but that this manipulation would be both defeated by exposure and exhausted by the banks' dishoarding of their gold.

China seen trying to manipulate copper prices down

Section: Daily Dispatches

By Andrew Pasek
Xinhua Finance
via AFX News and Forbes.com
Wednesday, November 29, 2006

http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/afx/2006/11/29/afx3211541.html

BEIJING -- China is keen to bring rising copper prices under control and may take strategic market positions during the end-year lull to help control prices for the metal, Numis Securities said.

"Thin trading on the LME over Christmas could make the market vulnerable to manipulation from key consumers, like the Chinese, who could make a concerted effort to reduce prices in this environment. The danger is that the bulls could decimate anyone who dares to short the market and this threat could keep speculators away," Numis said in a research note.

Mid-tier gold miners are takeover targets, maybe for Billiton

Section: Daily Dispatches

12:44p ET Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

MineWeb's Dorothy Kosich notes research concluding that the mid-tier gold mining sector in politically secure North America is shrinking and causing a rise in valuation of other mid-tier producers around the world, including IAMGOLD, Agnico-Eagle, Eldorado Gold, Centerra Gold, and Yamana Gold, which now are identified as likely targets for takeovers. You can find Kosich's story here:

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