10:05p EDT Friday, September 24, 1999

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

I think you'll enjoy this commentary posted today at
www.cbsmarketwatch.com [1] by their foremost analyst,
Thom Calandra. It is powerful evidence that market
sentiment is changing in our favor.

Please post this as seems useful.

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

* * *

A technical take on -- oh no! -- gold

By Thom Calandra
CBS MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- I ran into technical analyst
Mike Hurley at www.eoffering.com [2] the other day. He's
got some news for the bugs -- the gold bugs.

Hurley scans charts for investment opportunities, then
publishes his findings at the San Francisco investment
bank's Web site. Hurley has quot;sizing up the technicalsquot;
for 15 years at various San Francisco investment banks
and research firms. One-year: XAU gold index and BKX
bank index

Hurley was taking a look at the Philadelphia Gold and
Silver Index (XAU), a collection of the largest North
American gold companies. And why not? That big London
gold auction this week -- the second by the Bank of
England -- was more than eight times over-subscribed.

Gold prices, while in the dumps, have responded well to
the British central bank's firesale of the precious
metal. Gold sold for more than $270 an ounce in New
York futures trading on Friday. That's the active gold
contract's highest point since June 8.

Hurley sees quot;accumulationquot; in some gold stocks this
summer and now autumn. That means that Wall Street
institutions look like they are willing to buy the
stocks in increasingly large portions -- and on
upticks. That hasn't happened in a long, long time.

The so-called XAU gold and silver index, meanwhile, has
a chart that intrigues Hurley.

quot;The XAU looks extremely positive in its own right and
may be forming what technicians call a saucer bottom, a
pattern commonly found at major lows,quot; he says.

Gold stocks such as Newmont Mining and Barrick Gold
often make sharp moves that are tied to the price of
the metal. Nothing new there. Hurley goes a step
further and contrasts the XAU with the New York Stock
Exchange's Financial Index of bank stocks. Financial
stocks generally lead the U.S. stock market up -- or
down. And gold stocks generally do the opposite of
financial stocks.

These days, the gold index and the bank index are going
their separate ways -- only the gold chart looks like
it's rising and the bank index looks like it's falling.
That means some investors might see trouble ahead for
the broad market -- for whatever reason (that's another
column, folks).

quot;Investors and traders seeking a hedge against a
stronger-than expected-economy and/or Y2K turmoil may
now be seeing the type of investment entry that rarely
comes along,quot; Hurley says.

That would be gold. The yellow metal that has lost lots
of investors lots of money in the 1990s. Unless they
were short-selling the stuff.

Enough said.