yup broke through it about 10 mins ago. My thought are this at the moment, go for the Yank companies, BEMA gold. Ok yes I put up a speculative buy on Thistle and I am still holding but I have taken top end profits. One that could suprise is Minmet, no SA problems or african problems, mines in Sweden and looking at last strong.

Cheers GF.

what price do u think Bema Gold will get to by christmas time or early part of 2004.
I'm thinking of buying into them but maybe i have missed out by the sudden increase esp in the last week or so.

And does anyone have a realistic view of share price of Avocet mining as they have interim results out on the 26th.

Thanks for any replies and for all of the above info

Friday November 21, 2:46 PM
Professional Gold Investors Say Shares Appear Stretched
(This story was originally published Thursday)

By Michael Wang
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES


LONDON (Dow Jones)--Top professional gold investors warned Thursday that share valuations are looking "stretched" but fell short of issuing a sell recommendation.

That's because many feel the spot gold price - already hovering at seven-and-a-half year highs - hasn't finished its run.

Graham Birch, head of Merrill Lynch Investment Management's natural resources team, said based on a rule-of-thumb that cyclical commodity prices roughly double after they have reached the bottom, gold still has some upside.

"If we say that the bottom of the cycle was roughly $250 (an ounce), than we could be looking at $500 (an ounce)," he said on the sidelines of a gold investment conference here.

In the past seven months, the precious metal has appreciated by 25%. In late European trading Thursday, spot gold was hovering around $393.50 an ounce, down from about $400 an ounce Wednesday.

But fund managers said, at the moment, gold-share prices appear to have got carried away based on historic valuations. Factors such as replacing production with reserves, cutting costs and boosting profitability are also powerful determinants of share value, they said.

"Valuationsare a little bit stretched," said David Whitten, head of a global resources fund at Australia's Colonial First State (CFI.AU). He was referring to such standard measurement ratios as price to earnings, enterprise value to earnings before interest and tax, and the internal rate of return of gold mining companies.

"We mightsee a little correction (downward) in the gold market," Walter Wehrli, a Zurich-based gold-fund advisor, predicted, noting signs of share-price "overheating" in some junior gold miners.

Echoing other market sentiments, John Hathaway, managing director, of Tocqueville Asset Management LP, asked: "Is it time to take the money off the table?"

Hathaway didn't offer an answer, other than to say he felt a spot gold price north of $400 is sustainable. In 2004, "$400 an ounce will look like $300 an ounce does now," he forecast.

But he warned that one of the biggest "challenges for global mining companies (is) to maintain output at current levels."

The task is difficult given long lead times in booking reserves from exploration and the heftier costs attached with companies mining increasingly exotic and remote areas -such as the former Soviet Union, Southeast Asia and South America.

Nevertheless, the fund managers did offer investors their best share picks for the sector.

Wehrli is tipping Australia's Kingsgate Consolidated Ltd. (KCN.AU) as a hot buy.

He noted the company's sub-$150/oz cash cost profile, rising profitability, accumulating reserves picture and generous 7% dividend as key supports.

MLIM's Birch punted South Africa's Harmony Gold Mining Co. (HAR.JO) as one of his favorites given its world-beating reserves profile. Harmony's status would be even more improved were it not for the near doubling in the value of the South African rand against the dollar in the last 23 months, he noted.

Wehrli added that a good model for picking gold mining winners is to find exploration companies that are just about to go into production.

On that score, London-based Oxus Gold (OXS.LN) is a candidate as it is scheduled to pour its first gold in Uzbekistan around Christmas.

I think Dow Jones report is nonsense:-

Gold is 393.85 now in u.k.-considerably down than Before terrorism.I think
the price will be 398/399 on tuesday.IF I am right it is a great opportunity
to buy now.Opinions ?

New York Spot Price :-

Ask = 396.00

Bid = 395.50

World spot price

Ask = 394.00

Bid = 393.50

Looks like my forecast of 398/399 - last week - for tomorrow is completely wrong

http://Gold chart - week of Nov24

ajren, I think the US$ is staging a brief rally = price of gold going down.

Yup looks that way scottie. Dollar strengthining this afternoon.

cheers Gf.

>Gold execs predict output shift

By: Ken Gooding


Posted: 2003/11/21 Fri 06:59 ZE2 | Mineweb 1997-2003


LONDON – Ten years from today global gold production will be dominated by Russian and other central Asian countries that once made up the former Soviet Union.
This prediction was confidently made today by executives of some of the companies in the vanguard of this massive change. They were speaking at the Gold Investment Summit organised by Euromoney publications and the World Gold Council.

The speed of the potential build-up was illustrated by Kevin Foo, managing director of AIM listed Celtic Resources Holdings. He pointed out that, if the plans of only four of the junior companies operating in the region came to fruition, their combined gold annual output would jump by more than 200 percent between 2004 and 2006 – from 788,000oz to 2.5moz.

The companies used for this example, apart from Celtic itself, were Highland Gold, High River Gold and Peter Hambro Mining.

Celtic is operating in Russia and Kazakhstan and Foo said there had been many recent changes in the region that had vastly improved the political climate. Legal, tax and fiscal regimes had also improved. At the same time “the opportunities are vast.”

Nevertheless, gold companies operating in the region should always keep a wary eye open for “factor X” or the unexpected. “Always have a plan for the worst case.”

Foo said the highly fragmented Russian gold industry was being consolidated in “a new gold rush.”

Bill Trew, chief executive of Oxus Gold, also looked for a new gold rush – this time in Uzbekistan, where his company is about to bring a new US$30m gold mine into operation. This took only eight months to construct and Trew suggested this was the shortest time ever taken to bring a mine of its size – 200,000oz a year – into production.

Emphasising the potential of Uzbekistan, Trew said Oxus had plans to build five mines in five years there and to acquire 100,000oz of production.

He pointed out that Uzbekistan had the fourth biggest gold reserves of any country in the world and was already the ninth biggest gold producer. He predicted that the country would rapidly move up the table of gold producing countries and that “ten years from now all the major gold producers will be operating in central Asia.”

For the time being, however, some are not showing immense enthusiasm. Jay Taylor, president of Placer Dome, one of the speakers, was asked for his opinion, and said his group had disbanded its Russian office recently because it could see better opportunities elsewhere. “We have 40m ounces in projects and 40m in resources, so we have our hands full at present.”

Responding to a delegate’s question, Peter Hambro, executive chairman of Peter Hambro Mining, which next year will celebrate ten years of operating in Russia, said that during that time he had found it remarkably free of graft and corruption. His company was recently unsuccessful in an auction for a gold property but the auction process itself was very fair and not biased towards Russian companies.

ANY VIEWS ON IT .. GOLDEN PROSPECTS ??

Russia,etc in 10 years.I would not predict what the countries will be like
in 7 days e.g.Putin rigged the elections.Why invest in corrupt regimes ?
rgds aj

Russia is totally corrupt. Even worse than the UK - lol.

I visited russia this year on holiday and was amazed by the amount of mafia. It will be decades before russia sorts itself out. I spoke to one of the mafia guys and he told me russia was corrupt from top to bottom starting with Putin. Maybe Bush should declare war on Russia. Then King Tony will repeat those sentiments with Mr. Bush. Lol