Count on Sinclair for gold commentary even on Sunday

1:09p ET Sunday, May 11, 2003

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Here's a bunch of important stuff we'll try to keep in a single
dispatch.

1) The interview of John Embry, president of Sprott Asset
Management of Toronto, on Canada's ROB-TV quot;Market
Callquot; program last Thursday went wonderfully for gold,
according to friends who watched it. I have been able to
watch via ROB-TV's Internet archive only the first segment
of the program -- I'm having trouble getting the others to
work -- but for starters Embry declared matter-of-factly
that central banks lately have been intervening against
the gold price; that this shouldn't be so surprising, because
they did the same thing for a few years in the 1960s;
that they are losing a lot of gold; and that they will be
quot;carried outquot; by a rising gold price -- the very phrase used
about them so often by GATA Chairman Bill Murphy over at
his Internet site, www.LeMetropoleCafe.com. Maybe you'll
have better luck with ROB-TV's Internet archive than I had.
You can find links to the Embry interview here, but only
until next Wednesday:

a href=http://www.robtv.com/channels/hubs/pastprograms_highlights_thu.htmlhttp:...

2) Here's a very interesting post at the forum at
www.Gold-Eagle.com by its proprietor, I.M. Vronsky:

quot;Gold-Eagle Gold Fund Index has given a BUY SIGNAL on a
Daily and Weekly basis by rising above its 50- and 200-day
Moving Averages.

quot;Gold-Eagle Gold Fund Index is the most representative of
any PM index in the world.

quot;The GOLD-EAGLE Gold Fund Index was developed to
correct the narrow bias of the XAU Index and its other inherent
weaknesses.

quot;Our index is composed of eight global precious metals mutual
funds. Their investment portfolios contain many hundreds of
different mining companies, whose operations span the earth
-- United States, Canada, South America, South Africa, Australia,
and Indonesia. The GOLD-EAGLE Gold Fund Index is truly a
surrogate for the global precious metals mining shares universe.

quot;To see the daily, weekly, and monthly charts of the
GOLD-EAGLE Gold Fund Index:

quot;a href=http://www.gold-eagle.com/charts/gegfi.htmlhttp://www.gold-eagle.com/cha...

3) There has been lots of commentary in the last week
about the crashing U.S. dollar. Here's a good story on
the subject from Reuters, quot;Sayonara, Strong-Dollar
Policy.quot; Of course none of these stories ever examines
exactly how the quot;strong-dollar policyquot; is implemented
if not by suppressing the gold price, but maybe some
journalist will figure it out any day now.

a href=http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/030509/markets_forex_dollar_4.htmlhttp://biz.yah...

4) If you still believe that free markets are the economic
goals of the great democracies, consider the story from
the Financial Times appended here. It describes the
massive and continuing intervention by Japan in the
foreign exchange markets.

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

* * *

Japan reveals $20 billion of currency interventions

By David Pilling
Financial Times
Thursday, May 8, 2003

Japan said on Thursday that it had sold yen to the tune of
$20 billion (18 billion) in the first three months of the year,
raising the prospect that it would continue to intervene to
prevent the Japanese currency becoming too strong.

The detailed breakdown of what had been secret intervention
show that Japan sold yen, largely for the dollar but also for the
euro, on 17 days in the first three months of the year. The first
intervention was on January 15 when the dollar fell below 118.

The revelation comes a day after the yen rose to a two-month
high against the dollar at 116.5, triggered largely by a US
Federal Reserve report suggesting it would keep interest rates
low to head off deflation. Traders said the recent strengthening
of the yen reflected a weakening dollar rather than optimism
about the Japanese economy.

Masaaki Kanno, economist at JP Morgan in Tokyo, said Japan
was likely to intervene again. quot;I think there's every reason to
believe that Japan's Ministry of Finance will support the dollar,
at least above 115.quot;

There were already signs that a stronger yen was harming
exports, especially in the car sector, he said. On Thursday,
Toyota said the prospect of a stronger yen could harm profits
next year. It estimated the yen at 115 to the dollar in the year
ahead, against 122 in the year to the end of March 2003.

Exports have been the one bright spot in an economy that
is still struggling to gain momentum several quarters after it
pulled out of its worst postwar recession. On Thursday, a
leading economic indicator, the diffusion index compiled by
the cabinet office, fell below the quot;boom-or-bustquot; mark for the
first time in five months.

Analysts were cautious in their interpretation of the index,
which fell to 20 from 60 the previous month. Shuji Shirota,
economist at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, said the
economy had probably been flat during the first three months,
but could begin to sag from now on.

Japan has consistently said that it has no intention of
intervening to weaken the yen, but merely wants to ensure
against extreme volatility. However, privately many officials
say they would welcome a weaker currency. Masajuro
Shiokowa, finance minister, has on a number of occasions
appeared to set a target for the yen-dollar rate by saying it
would be at 150 on a purchasing-power parity basis.

Japan has switched tactics since Zembei Mizoguchi replaced
Haruhiko Kuroda as vice-minister of finance in charge of
international affairs in January. Mr Mizoguchi, who has said
Japan is prepared to intervene quot;massivelyquot; to smooth out
market volatility, has favoured secret intervention. In the past,
Japan has tended to make its currency operations known to
all market participants.