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3:29p ET Saturday, April 23, 2005
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
Here's a Dow Jones Newswires interview,
distributed Friday, with a member of
GATA's Board of Directors, Wistar Holt
of Holt & Shapard Capital Management of
St. Louis, whose Internet site is:
http://www.holtshapard.com/pages/5/index.htm
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee INc.
* * *
Bearish Holt & Shapard Remains Hooked On Gold
By Greg Edwards
Dow Jones Newswires
Friday, April 22, 2005
ST. LOUIS -- Wistar Holt says he's the only money manager in St.
Louis who is a true bear.
How bearish is he?
The only equities that Holt buys are gold-mining stocks. And he's
been doing that since January 2001.
"Gold is the place to be, almost exclusively," Holt said.
His firm, Holt & Shapard Capital Management, manages $40 million in
assets for about 250 clients, mostly individuals. The accounts are
fully discretionary and fee-based.
Holt said he became concerned about the valuation of the market in
late 2000, got out entirely in January 2001, and began looking for
other investments to hedge a downturn in the economy.
"The only thing I could come up with was gold," Holt said. "It had
just gone through a 20-year bear market, hitting a low of $255 an
ounce in January '01, from $850 an ounce in May 1980." Recently it
has been at about $435 an ounce.
Today Holt & Shapard's investments are 70 percent in precious metals
mining stocks, 15 percent in the Prudent Bear Fund, and 15 percentin
the Prudent Global Income Fund, a foreign government bond fund.
The mining stocks are Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. (AEM), Gold Fields
Ltd. (GFI), Goldcorp Inc. (GG), Hecla Mining Co. (HL), Coeur d'Alene
Mines Corp. (CDE), Harmony Gold Mining Co. (HMY), and Newmont Mining
Corp. (NEM).
Because his portfolio is so heavily concentrated in one area, Holt
chose large-cap stocks to minimize risk.
"The criteria for all of these is that they are primarily large-cap,
established companies and they are also unhedged," Holt said. "If
you are in a gold bull market, you don't want to be selling years-
out production because you may be locking yourself into a price that
ends up being significantly lower than it is when that time comes."
Holt's returns, net after fees, were 31.2 percent in 2001, 155
percent in 2002, 20.1 percent in 2003, a loss of 17 percent in 2004,
and a loss of 4.2 percent through the first quarter of this year.
Holt isn't discouraged by the downturn this year and last: "We think
gold is still very much in a long-term bull market," he said.
"I think gold will do well for several more years, maybe even
longer," he said. "At some point, gold will get overvalued, and the
market will presumably be undervalued, and I may go 180 degrees back
the other way."
However, he said, "we're miles from that now."
Holt said his investing style has long been "deep value." He spent
22 years with Wall Street firms, including Smith Barney and Paine
Webber. Eventually, he said, he no longer fit in.
"My style just ran counter to Wall Street and New York," he said. "I
was pressured to buy traditional equities, to not be so bearish."
Holt said the administration and the Federal Reserve have done
everything they can in recent years to stimulate the economy and
forestall a recession.
"According to Austrian economics, which I subscribe to," Holt
said, "when you massively stimulate the economy to avoid a downturn,
all you're really doing is deferring it.
"The downturn will be worse because of this," he said. "That's why
we remain entirely out of traditional equities."
----------------------------------------------------
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RECOMMENDED INTERNET SITES
FOR DAILY MONITORING OF GOLD
AND PRECIOUS METALS
NEWS AND ANALYSIS
Free sites:
http://www.cbs.marketwatch.com
http://www.usagold.com/amk/usagoldmarketupdate.html
http://www.capitalupdates.com/
http://www.silver-investor.com
http://www.thebulliondesk.com/
http://www.goldismoney.info/index.html
http://www.minersmanual.com/minernews.html
http://www.a1-guide-to-gold-investments.com/euro-vs-dollar.html
http://www.investmentrarities.com
http://www.kereport.com
(Korelin Business Report -- audio)
http://www.plata.com.mx/plata/home.htm
(In Spanish)
http://www.plata.com.mx/plata/plata/english.htm
(In English)
http://www.resourceinvestor.com
Subscription sites:
http://www.lemetropolecafe.com/
http://www.interventionalanalysis.com
http://www.investmentindicators.com/
Eagle Ranch discussion site:
http://os2eagle.net/checksum.htm
Ted Butler silver commentary archive:
http://www.investmentrarities.com/
----------------------------------------------------
COIN AND PRECIOUS METALS DEALERS
WHO HAVE SUPPORTED GATA
AND BEEN RECOMMENDED
BY OUR MEMBERS
Blanchard & Co. Inc.
909 Poydras St., Suite 1900
New Orleans, Louisiana 70112
888-413-4653
http://www.blanchardonline.com
Centennial Precious Metals
3033 East First Ave., Suite 807
Denver, Colorado 80206
1-800-869-5115
http://www.USAGOLD.com
Michael Kosares, Proprietor
cpm@usagold.com
Colorado Gold
222 South 5th St.
Montrose, Colorado 81401
http://www.ColoradoGold.com
Don Stott, Proprietor
1-888-786-8822
Gold@gwe.net
El Dorado Discount Gold
Box 11296
Glendale, Arizona 85316
http://www.eldoradogold.net
Harvey Gordin, President
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Mobile: 602-228-8203
harvey@eldoradogold.net
Gold & Silver Investments Ltd.
Mespil House
37 Adelaide Rd
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+353 1 2315260/6
Fax: +353 1 2315202
http://www.goldinvestments.org
info@gold.ie
Investment Rarities Inc.
7850 Metro Parkway
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http://www.gloomdoom.com
Greg Westgaard, Sales Manager
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gwestgaard@investmentrarities.com
Kitco
178 West Service Road
Champlain, N.Y. 12919
Toll Free:1-877-775-4826
Fax: 518-298-3457
and
620 Cathcart, Suite 900
Montreal, Quebec H3B 1M1
Canada
Toll-free:1-800-363-7053
Fax: 514-875-6484
http://www.kitco.com
Lee Certified Coins
P.O. Box 1045
454 Daniel Webster Highway
Merrimack, New Hampshire 03054
http://www.certifiedcoins.com
Ed Lee, Proprietor
1-800-835-6000
leecoins@aol.com
Lone Star Silver Exchange
1702 S. Highway 121
Suite 607-111
Lewisville, Texas 75067
214-632-8869
http://www.discountsilverclub.com
Miles Franklin Ltd.
3015 Ottawa Ave. South
St. Louis Park, Minn. 55416
1-800-822-8080 / 952-929-1129
fax: 952-925-0143
http://www.milesfranklin.com
Contacts: David Schectman,
Andy Schectman, and Bob Sichel
Missouri Coin Co.
11742 Manchester Road
St. Louis, MO 63131-4614
info@mocoin.com
314-965-9797
1-800-280-9797
http://www.mocoin.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
http://www.swissamerica.com
Dr. Fred I. Goldstein, Senior Broker
1-800-BUY-COIN
FiGoldstein@swissamerica.com
The Moneychanger
Box 178
Westpoint, Tennessee 38486
http://www.the-moneychanger.com
Franklin Sanders
1-888-218-9226, 931-766-6066
----------------------------------------------------
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