John Read Suspect Quotations

We believe that new-year allocations towards commodities will keep platinum and palladium firm in the near term and see platinum at $1,100/oz and palladium at $300/oz over one month, although we suspect that profit taking will set in at some stage and see both metals lower to $1,050/oz and $270/oz in three months.

We suspect that technical buying of gold and silver on COMEX (New York) will be triggered by a positive announcement of the silver ETF.

Gold has started 2006 in a positive manner and we suspect that this strength will continue in the near term.

We do not believe that this correction is over and suspect that gold will now consolidate between recent extremes of $545 and $568, with a break of $575 needed to bring back bullish sentiment.