Press release on suit against Kinross by Berger Montague and Reg Howe

8:14p ET Monday, April 29, 2002

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

For many months GATA member Mark J.
Lundeen has been campaigning for us
throughout his home state, Minnesota, and,
partly as a result, a good article about
gold has just appeared in the Minneapolis
Star Tribune.

The story includes a comment from GATA's
friend Craig Smith of Swiss America Trading
Corp. in Arizona.

I'll append the story here. It shows that the
regional American press is worth working on
even as the national press continues to
suppress the gold story. We ARE getting the
word out -- and gold itself is starting to
help a lot!

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

* * *

Gold star: Fund glitters with
35 percent gain in first quarter

By Mike Blahnik
Minneapolis Star Tribune
April 26, 2002

Finally, quot;good as goldquot; means something
again.

A four-month runup in the price of the
precious metal and shares of the companies
that mine it has many experts saying that
gold's 22-year price decline might be over.

Proof that the gold rush is on: The AXP
Precious Metals Fund, with a glittering 34.8
percent gain in the first quarter, was by far
the top-performing mutual fund among the
approximately 100 managed in the Twin Cities.

quot;I think [gold's bear market] is over,quot; said
Clay Hoes, who manages the fund for
Minneapolis-based American Express Financial
Advisors.

quot;What we're in now is a depletion mode, on a
global basis, in gold. ... There are a lot
of structural issues that prohibit new mine
production from coming on quickly, and even
expansion capabilities from coming on
quickly.quot;

Hoes' fund has 81 percent of its $53 million
in assets invested in gold stocks, whose
prices have risen faster than the 13 percent
that gold prices have risen since early
December.

quot;Most of the gold equity move has occurred
not from gold funds purchasing the equities,quot;
Hoes said. quot;It's been from general mutual
funds adding gold to their portfolio for some
diversification purposes, which we haven't
seen in a number of years.quot;

The fund's performance is worthy of a gold
star: It ranks in the top 1 percent of all
mutual funds over the past quarter and past
year.

Also faring well in the first quarter were
emerging-market funds, which rose as South
Korea and Taiwan, among others, saw economic
recoveries. After a strong fourth quarter,
the sector yielded nice first-quarter gains
for funds managed by U.S. Bancorp's First
American group (up 16.8 percent), American
Express (up 11.8 percent) and Sit Investments
(up 4.0 percent). Fund returns do not include
sales charges.

Funds that invest in small-cap companies also
beat the 0.3 percent return offered by the
Standard amp; Poor's 500 index. And because few
large companies have raised profit
projections as they announced earnings over
the past two weeks, small-company stocks
remain relatively undervalued.

The worst-performing funds in the first
quarter generally were those invested in the
technology sector. Among those, the AXP
Global Technology Fund fell 8.4 percent, the
First American Technology Fund slipped 8.8
percent, and the Sit Science and Technology
Growth Fund dropped 14.7 percent.

Several factors are behind gold's surge over
the past few months and many investors'
belief that the trend will continue: hedging
against currency declines and future
inflation, consolidation among mining
companies, barriers to new production,
limited sales by central banks, and less
quot;forwardquot; selling of future production by
gold producers.

quot;There's been an increased interest in owning
gold, both on a commodity basis and the
equities [stocks] as well,quot; Hoes said.

In addition to purchases by large commodity
funds, big purchases were made by Japanese
investors -- concerned that some banks might
fail -- trying to protect their savings.

quot;You take what you can while the banking
system is solvent and convert it to gold,
which is priced in dollars. While the yen is
eroding, you have a different form of
liquidity that's holding its value,quot; Hoes
explained.

Gold also is resuming its traditional quot;real
assetquot; role in the United States as a hedge
against inflation. Although the U.S. economy
remains stagnant, some analysts fear that the
current low interest rates eventually will
reignite economic growth and inflation, with
the Fed willing to accept higher inflation as
the price for a revived economy.

Then there are the industry's structural
issues.

Consolidation among mining companies have
reduced competition and future supply
projections.

quot;Because we've been in a 20-year downtrend,
you've had most of the exploration companies
disappear, because there have been no dollars
available for spending on exploration,quot; Hoes
said. quot;You've had mining companies go out of
business, because the gold price has been
below the break-even price for so long.quot;

Also important, Hoes said, is a 1999
agreement between the U.S. and European
central banks that limits the amount of gold
the banks can sell or lease.

quot;Prior to 1999 we had no idea what they were
selling. We were told after the fact, and the
market would behave in a knee-jerk reaction
and go down big-time. Now we know how to
build it into our models,quot; he said.

Additionally, the agreement essentially shut
down many of the bullion dealers who were
creating derivative securities that added to
market volatility.

Meanwhile, the limits on gold that banks can
lease to mining companies, which sold it with
the intent of replacing it with gold they
later mined, have pushed up the lease rates
to a level that no longer makes the
transaction favorable for the mines.

quot;When you throw all of those factors together
and then you look at how the sector in
general has been performing ... you go,
'Wow, gold equities don't look so bad here,'quot;
Hoes said.

Hoes isn't alone in forecasting higher gold
prices.

Gold futures prices reached a two-year high
Thursday, rising $3.80 an ounce to close at
$308.10. The push was led by weakness in the
value of the U.S. dollar, said Ron Richert, a
futures brokers at Benson-Quinn Commodities
Inc. in Minneapolis.

Richert said he began putting clients into
gold a few months ago.

quot;I thought the market was about due, based on
world events and the economy, and it doesn't
take much money to move the gold market,
where it does take a lot of money to move the
stock market,quot; he said.

His analysis of gold price charts leads him
to project a price of about $320 an ounce, he
said.

Craig Smith, CEO of the rare-coin investment
firm Swiss America Trading Corp. and author
of quot;Rediscovering Gold in the 21st Centuryquot;
(much of the book is posted online at
a href=http://www.RediscoveringGold.comhttp://www.RediscoveringGold.com/a), said he
wasn't convinced gold had broken out of its
22-year bear market until just this week.

Smith prefers to invest in early American
gold coins because their limited quantities
can lead to price increases, but he also is a
fan of gold mutual funds.

quot;If you look at gold over the 6,000-year
period it's been around, you come to grips
with the fact that there's never really been
a time where you shouldn't have some amount
of gold,quot; he said. quot;I think you should have
some small portion, between 1 and 10 percent
of your portfolio, diversified in something
tangible, and obviously that's gold.quot;

-------------------------------------------

COIN AND PRECIOUS METALS DEALERS
WHO HAVE SUPPORTED GATA
AND BEEN RECOMMENDED BY OUR MEMBERS

Centennial Precious Metals
3033 East 1st Ave.
Suite 403
Denver, Colorado 80206
www.USAGold.com
Michael Kosares, Proprietor
US (800) 869-5115
Canada 1-800-294-9462
European Union 00-800-2760-2760
Australia 0011-800-2760-2760
cpm@usagold.com

Colorado Gold
222 South 5th St.
Montrose, Colorado 81401
www.ColoradoGold.com
Don Stott, Proprietor
1-888-786-8822
Gold@gwe.net

Investment Rarities Inc.
7850 Metro Parkway
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55425
a href=http://www.gloomdoom.comhttp://www.gloomdoom.com/a
Greg Westgaard, Sales Manager
1-800-328-1860, Ext. 8889
gwestgaard@investmentrarities.com

Lee Certified Coins
P.O. Box 1045
454 Daniel Webster Highway
Merrimack, New Hampshire 03054
www.certifiedcoins.com
Ed Lee, Proprietor
1-800-835-6000
leecoins@aol.com

Resource Consultants Inc.
6139 South Rural Road
Suite 103
Tempe, Arizona 85283-2929
Pat Gorman, Proprietor
1-800-494-4149, 480-820-5877
Metalguys@aol.com

Swiss America Trading Corp.
15018 North Tatum Blvd.
Phoenix, Arizona 85032
a href=http://www.buycoin.comhttp://www.buycoin.com/a
Dr. Fred I. Goldstein, Senior Broker
1-800-BUY-COIN
figoldstein@buycoin.com

------------------------------------------

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