GATA can blow the gold cartel out of the water

By Adrienne Roberts and Gillian O'Connor
The Financial Times
March 14, 2001

a href=http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?/a
pagename=Viewamp;c=Articleamp;cid=FT341KLFBKCamp;live=trueamp;useoverridetemplate=
IXLZHNNP94C

Equity market turbulence sent investors scrambling for safe havens on
Wednesday, but gold was snubbed as the market took refuge in
government bonds.

US Treasuries surged and the German June Bund future hit a contract
high, but gold fell more than $5 to $263.85 at the afternoon fix.

quot;People don't look at gold the way they did 10 years ago. We saw
during the Russian crisis that gold's importance as an asset class
has declined, especially in the western markets.quot; said Paul Walker at
Gold Fields Mineral Services.

The UK's auction was disappointing. The bid/cover ratio for the 25
tonnes on offer was just 2.2 times and the allotment price of $266 an
ounce was significantly lower than the morning fix of $267.45 an
ounce.

In football parlance, quot;The crowd remained seated,quot; said Andy Smith at
Mitsui. quot;Most short positions who wanted to buy had already left the
stadium. And, presumably, few producers bothered to attend and make a
bid.quot;

This was the last of the Bank of England's 25 tonne auctions. The
next series, starting on May 15, will be of 20 tonnes apiece.

Still, gold retains some of its appeal as a store of value in other
parts of the world. quot;I expected a large drop in physical flows of
gold to Turkey after the currency devaluation. But anecdotal evidence
suggests this hasn't happened,quot; said Mr Walker.

Taiwanese gold import figures soared last year around the time of
Chen Shui-bian's presidential inauguration.