•You will hear a dialogue about gold price. •For each question (23-30), ma

Woman: And gold bugs are rejoicing. There was a Gold Rush of a sort this week. Following a four-year slide in prices, the price of one ounce of gold soared to $ 327. That’s up 20% in just two days to a 17-month high. But it still remains far below its historic peak of more than $800 an ounce. Remember that? Reached way back in 1980. Is there any money to be made in gold? Jenny Merton does some digging in this week’s Money Matters.
Man: Investors around the world went mining for gold this week. Three recent events led to the bullion wine binge. First, the Bank of England’s gold auction two weeks ago went better than anticipated. It got much higher prices this month for gold than it had in July. At the same time, the IMF confirmed it cancelled plans to sell 10 million ounces of its gold reserves on the open market. And then last weekend, fifteen European central banks, which hold about half of the world’s gold reserves, pledged to limit sales for the next five years, basically cutting back new gold supplies to the market and boosting its price. Analysts said the trio-fact signals good news for the gold market.
   Commodities analyst and author of the new book The New Precious Metals Market, Philip Gotthelf says the continuing catalyst for that momentum is Y2K.
Woman: The interest in gold is directly correlated with fears about what’s going to happen after January 1, and gold traditionally is a hedge against panic.
Man: If you invested in gold just a few months ago, you might have made a glittering 50% return on your money. But Gotthetf said that mediocre rise probably won’t continue, but there are still ways to benefit from this rally. Experts recommend investing in large good quality mining companies like Newmont Corporation and Homestake Mining. They will continue to do well even if gold pulls hack a little.
Woman: We should keep in mind. though, that in the long run gold companies are good business. They manufacture the stuff cheaply, and they sell it more expensively, and that’s just a profitable business. So you should look at these companies as those that are manufacturing apparel, cars, oil Whatever the case might be, gold happens to be a good product.
Man: Another way to profit from gold could be through a gold fund. Most of those which were down more than 50% over the past three years have picked up nicely so far this year. And if you are in market for gold jewelry, perhaps as a Christmas gift, one analyst said: "Don’t worry" The current retail inventory was purchased at cheaper prices, so the actual jewelry price shouldn’t go up along with the rest of the gold market, at least during this holiday gift-giv-ing season.
Woman: Hint, hint. Well, experts said you might also want to take a look at what they called "poor man’s gold", that’s silver. The silver prices have followed gold up recently. Analysts like Idaho-based gold and silver miner Couterd’alene.
   Meanwhile Bill Gates, you know him of
   Microsoft’s fame. Well, he has already jumped on this silver bandwagon. It was revealed this week that he now owns a 10.3 % stake in mining company Pan American Silver Corp. See how that turns out.