his year’s New York Metals & Minerals Investment Conference – formerly known as New York Hard Assets Conference – has been badly hit by the drop in metals and minerals prices, and particularly of gold, with mining company exhibitor numbers down drastically.
The organisers though have attempted to counter this with a very strong speaker programme which they have to take great credit for putting together.
The history of this event – which in its earliest days was known as the New York Gold Show, but has had various other name changes in the interim – has always been of ups and downs depending on the state of the mining sector at the time, and assuming the sector picks up over the next 12 months may benefit considerably from the positive vibes following this year’s interesting slate of speakers, ranging from top independent and bank analysts to former maverick Republican Senator Ron Paul – who incidentally is also scheduled to speak at the San Francisco Metals & Minerals Investment Conference in November this year as well.
The conference opened with politely received presentations from two speakers, Jeff Christian and Paul van Eeden, at the bearish end of the gold spectrum ( Christian battles the gold bulls – Fact and fiction in the gold market), while when Ron Paul spoke he entered to a largely standing ovation, and closed to one too, giving some idea of his political standing within the gold investment community.
His 45 minute speech was peppered with applause throughout as he made various points of strong appeal to the audience, including positive references to gold and some rather disparaging comments on the U.S. political system and its two dominant parties which he noted offered much the same policies on most of the key issues facing the American government today.
