9:13p ET Friday, March 30, 2001 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: News.24.com in South Africa has a very interesting interview with the chief executives of that country's three leading mining companies: Bobby Godsell of AngloGold, Chris Thompson of Gold Fields, and Bernard Swanepoel of Harmony. The interview touches heavily on the issue of manipulation of the gold market. An excerpt: * * * Question: The gold price has averaged around US$280/oz for two years, which represents a 20-year low. Some claim this price has been held down artificially. What do you think? Bernard Swanepoel: Most Harmony shareholders hold a "conspiracy" theory, but I believe there are more players interested in sending the price down than up, and sentiment is helping them. Chris Thompson: Some wild claims have been made. Yet these could easily have been refuted if they were untrue. One must ask why the claims weren't refuted. Bobby Godsell: I have no compelling evidence to support price manipulation. Two recent academic studies suggested forward selling affects prices and can cap rises in the short term, but this plays only a small part in explaining the weak gold price over the past two decades. In particular, the Jessica Cross study predicts a decline in producer hedging in the future. * * * You can read the interview here: http://news.24.com/News24/Finance/features/0,4186,2-8- 133_1004282,00.html CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-~> <FONT COLOR="#000099">Make good on the promise you made at graduation to keep in touch. Classmates.com has over 14 million registered high school alumni--chances are you'll find your friends! </FONT><A HREF="http://us.click.yahoo.com/03IJGA/DMUCAA/4ihDAA/WyOVlB/TM"><B>Click Here!</B></A> ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
