I am new to this board. I have been trading gold (on both the long and short sides) for 30+ years. I began trading the mining stocks (in addition to gold and silver futures, and physical coins and bullion accumulation) in 2001, from the long side. I have both a trading account and a core (accumulation and hold) account. Both are up, obviously (it IS a bull market...), by about the same factor (about 23% per year).

Ski intrigued me, so I signed on for a trial (a month? 6 weeks?) subscription, about a year and a half ago. I cancelled because I was (and am) convinced it is all abstract guessing, by the numbers, with occasional illness reports concerning his family. As a PhD in Literary Theory (UC Irvine, 1978), I am always interested in fictive strategies, alter egos, and other maskings dealing with various personae. So, all you veterans, just what IS the relationship between "Ski" and "Jeff"? Why does he occasionally refer to himself in the 3rd person? He often appears to wear the mask of some sort of neurotic mathemetician. Obviously, an oxymoron, since mathemeticians do not indulge in emotionally-driven ambiguities.

Back to the topic. Does Mr. Holmes know Ski? Does Mr. Holmes know that his fund's success lies within the pull of Ski's numerology? Does Ski know Mr. Holmes (like Dostoevski's Underground Man, Mr. Holmes, presumably, has the freedom to wrench himself away from the gravitational pull of Ski's arithmetic orbit...)?

Just who is who? I know, I know. Ski's claim is that past numerologies dictate the fate of present fund decisions, even if the two orbit in different galaxies...

Now, I know some of you out there are believers, and, if you have been in on the gold bull since its inception in 2001, you have made substantial profits following Ski's neurotic dance. Are you also aware that if you had simply purchased a well-diversified basket of gold (and silver) shares and a couple of futures contracts every August, over the past 7 years, and sold it in January, you would have made even larger returns, without the mystic claptrap? Just a thought.

Ski missed this August, because the planets didn't align in the right sequence. He consulted his abacus; I woke up one morning and looked at my calender. He passed; I watched the fear in the eyes of the zit-faced loons at CNBC and backed up the truck. Now, who says you need numbers.

Good luck all -- buy low and sell high (you don't have to get it exactly right, during a long-term secular trend).