Friday Market

A 40-year-old man smokes. A woman the same age doesn’t light up.In West Virginia and most other states, insurance companies that sell directly to consumers can still charge the woman more for health coverage.

In fact, the National Women’s Law Center found that 70 percent of best-selling West Virginia health plans sold in the individual insurance market cost more for 40-year-old women who don’t smoke than for men who do.

“There’s something the matter with that picture,” said Delegate Barbara Fleischauer, D-Monongalia.

About four decades ago, insurance companies stopped using race as a factor in setting rates. But state law still allows them to use gender to determine insurance costs.

Fleischauer is working on a bill that would ban insurance companies from using gender as a factor in determining rates. The legislative session begins Jan. 13.

She has studied the NWLC’s reports on the difficulties women face in getting health coverage in the individual market.

In the individual market, people buy insurance directly from insurance companies, rather than getting it through their employers.

About 4 percent of West Virginia women get their health insurance that way, according to the NWLC. Often, they have lost their jobs or are self-employed, said NWLC senior counsel Lisa Codispoti.

“While the majority of people get their health coverage through their employers, it’s still not an option for a lot of people in this country,” she said.

Like most other states, West Virginia law also allows insurance companies that provide group coverage to gender-rate. Even though a woman can’t be charged more for her premiums than a male co-worker, insurers still can consider the gender makeup of a work force when setting group rates.

That means insurance companies can charge more for employers in female-dominated fields, such as nursing and home health care, Codispoti said.

“We’ve even heard that some small school districts can be impacted by this,” she said.

The insurance industry says it costs more to insure women because they use more health care. Mountain State Blue Cross Blue Shield President Fred Earley said all factors now allowed under insurance law in pricing are “actuarially valid.”Besides gender, other factors include age, geography and medical conditions, he saidWhat is done is done on an actuarially confirmed basis,” he said. “A lot of it’s maternity-driven, there’s no question about it.”

Once people reach their 50s, it typically costs more to insure men, he said.

The NWLC found that in West Virginia, individual health coverage for 55-year-olds costs between 1 and 16 percent less for women than for men the same age.

Codispoti said maternity costs can’t explain all the differences in pricing. NWLC also studied maternity coverage in the individual market, finding that nearly 60 percent of policies it studied didn’t offer it.

This summer, NWLC analyst Brigette Courtot shared the center’s West Virginia findings with state lawmakers.

Researchers had studied the state’s best-selling health plans in Charleston, Huntington, Parkersburg and Wheeling. They found:
# Women age 25 were charged anywhere between 7 and 44 percent more than 25-year-old men for the same coverage.
# Women age 40 were charged between 13 and 34 percent more than men.
# Women age 55 were charged between 1 and 16 percent less than men.

Five states have banned individual-market insurance companies from using gender as a factor for setting rates: California, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire and North Dakota.

Six have prohibited the practice for group insurance: New York, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington.

Earley said it would be “redundant” for West Virginia to pass legislation next year, because national lawmakers have already taken up the issue in the current health-care debate.

America’s Health Insurance Plans, which represents 1,300 insurance companies, supports provisions in national reform legislation that would end gender rating.

The U.S. House health bill would prohibit gender rating for both individual and group insurance plans. The Senate version would prohibit gender rating for individual plans and for groups up to 100.

But those reforms wouldn’t take effect for several more years, Codispoti said.

“We’re certainly encouraging states, ‘Don’t wait,’” she said. “Women are hurting now. It’s discrimination, period, and women shouldn’t have to wait to end that discrimination.”

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By Siddesh Mayenkar

MUMBAI |
Wed Nov 30, 2011 8:47am GMT

MUMBAI (Reuters) – Simone Bora is considering a inconceivable — an Indian marriage though intemperate amounts of bullion after record high prices and a descending rupee have dimmed her hopes of stimulating during a party.

“We need to consider either to buy bullion or not given scarcely 30,000 rupees (370 pounds) for 10 grams is too much,” Bora pronounced in a jeweller’s emporium in Zaveri Bazaar in Mumbai, one of a world’s biggest bullion markets.

Indians are customarily a biggest buyers of bullion in a universe and from Oct to December, a calendar is full of festivals and weddings, formulating many opportunities for people to flourish their finery.

But general prices of mark bullion have risen 21 percent on a year, their 11th true year of rises, and a weakening rupee is also augmenting domestic prices.

The aloft prices have taken some of a glaze off Indians’ age-old mindfulness with bullion as an investment opposite acceleration — now nearby double-digits — quite as a lot of income is tied adult in slouch equities and genuine estate markets.

Things are looking lifeless for jewellers, with direct nonetheless to collect adult from a tumble final quarter, and bullion peaking during 29,212 rupees for 10 grams on Nov 15. Gold strike a record around $1,920 per section on tellurian markets in September.

“This remarkable arise (in bullion prices) has done people wait for some time to buy,” pronounced Kumar Jain, vice-president of a Mumbai Jewellers’ Association, adding that his bullion business has forsaken some 40 percent in volume given a start of a year.

Now expectations are flourishing for prices to trip towards 27,000 rupees around a finish of a year, spurring those who can to check purchases and those who have hoarded bullion to income in.

“Imports (of gold) will be down 20 to 25 percent in a final (December) entertain and it will have a disastrous impact on tellurian prices,” pronounced Prithviraj Kothari, boss of pivotal trade physique a Bombay Bullion Association, that has about 400 members.

Reuters marketplace researcher Clyde Russell expects that there should be seductiveness for bullion as a hedge, as prolonged as acceleration in India stays high, though that direct could be influenced by serve gains in tellurian prices.

Industry players polled by Reuters design accurately that — presaging prices could strike as most as 31,500 rupees by a finish of Jun subsequent year.

Q3 SLIDE IN JEWELLERY DEMAND

In a news this month, a World Gold Council pronounced Indian trinket direct slid 26 percent in a third quarter, while sum imports were down 20 percent.

The WGC expects direct to collect adult in a final 3 months of 2011, pulling imports to a record of some-more than 1,000 tonnes, though in a slight streets and family-run marketplace shops of Zaveri Bazaar there was small to support that optimism.

“Diwali festival shopping was delayed and winter shopping for weddings has also been slow,” pronounced Gargi Shah, metals researcher with GFMS, a section of ThomsonReuters, referring to a Hindu festival of light in October, when bullion is traditionally bought.

She pronounced many buyers bought in a initial half of a year, when a bullion cost corrected during a time they feared some-more destiny highs.

Demand in a second entertain was 38 percent adult on a year earlier, though in a July-to-September period, it slid 23 percent to 203.3 tonnes, according to a WGC.

“Many people brought brazen their purchases to a initial half in a expectancy prices would go higher,” Shah said.

TURNING TO SCRAP?

With prices nearby 30,000 rupees — noticed as a stream roof given cost charts prove a unbending insurgency turn there after a Nov 15 record of 29,212 rupees — Indians are branch in bullion trinket to warp down, temporarily reversing a long-term trend of descending throw supply.

“Current rupee prices yield an glorious event for someone to warp or recycle their bullion hoardings,” Shah said, adding that all a throw is out-of-date or worn, implying people are not cashing in for discerning profits.

One 50-year-old male took his grandmother’s 280-gram necklace to be melted down and found it value 630,000 rupees.

“As distant as a marriage deteriorate is concerned, people are removing their aged gold, or if they have invested in 24-carat gold, they are converting that bullion into ornaments,” pronounced Jain, who himself wears a bullion sequence and gold-plated watch.

The WGC pronounced in a third entertain Indians re-used about 15 tonnes of gold, adult from 10 tonnes in a second quarter. That’s still down from 22 tonnes in a third entertain of 2010 though Shah forked out that it bucked a long-term trend of disappearing scrap.

Shah pronounced a miss of some-more new purchases entrance into a throw marketplace showed a long-term mood remained bullish.

“Longer term, throw is trending down given of certain cost expectations. As of now, people have usually been articulate of 30,000 rupees and until we have a aloft number, you’ll see this kind of murder in a market,” she said.

DULLED BY DEPRECIATION

The rupee’s tumble to record lows opposite a dollar has driven domestic bullion gains, that continued after tellurian prices peaked, and has fed volatility, and nervousness, among buyers.

The rupee strike a record low of 52.73 to a dollar on Nov 22. Gold futures on a MCX sell are around 28,688 rupees per 10 grams with tellurian prices nearby $1,713 per ounce.

Rajan Venkatesh, bullion handling executive during ScotiaMocatta, pronounced a debasement of one percent in a rupee meant a arise of 0.7-0.8 rupees in a cost of gold.

“Demand is not that expansive right now, due to cost increases, and a bigger problem is a rupee, that has unheeded significantly,” he said.

Spending is squeezed by India’s inflation, now tighten to 10 percent in a clearly everlasting climb, while bottom lending has risen 13 times given early 2010 to mount during 8.5 percent.

Consumers had supports tied adult in underperforming assets, pronounced Jain, whose organisation groups 10,000 jewellers.

“The easy liquidity has stopped as people’s income is stranded in skill and batch markets,” he said.

Sales in Mumbai, India’s biggest skill market, are down some-more than a entertain this year, as rising prices and high seductiveness rates deter buyers. India’s batch marketplace .BSESN has depressed scarcely 25 percent given a start of 2011.

Bora, whose family hails from a western Indian state of Gujarat, pronounced her bill for marriage trinket had forsaken to 250,000 rupees — about half what she spent on her sister’s marriage 8 years ago.

(Additional stating by Rajendra Jadhav; Writing by Jo Winterbottom; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Tue Nov 29, 2011 7:32am EST

(Updates prices)

By Amanda Cooper

LONDON Nov 29 (Reuters) – Gold steadied on Tuesday
after posting a second-largest one-day benefit of a month the
previous day, increased by a stronger euro and a liberation in risk
assets such as stocks, with that bullion is trade some-more closely
than during any time in a final year.

The euro quickly traded during event highs opposite the
dollar after Italy sole three- and 10-year debt forward of a key
meeting of euro section financial ministers, that investors hope
could outcome in fine-tuning a sum for leveraging the
European Financial Stability Facility rescue fund.

European equities incited positive, that helped
boost gold.

The association between a bullion cost and a European
stock marketplace is during a many certain in a year, while the
correlation of bullion and copper is hovering around a highest
since a final entertain of 2010 as well, definition bullion is more
likely to pierce in lockstep with these assets.

Spot bullion was final quoted adult 0.16 percent at
$1,714.60 an unit by 1208 GMT, carrying risen from an intraday
low of $1,703.25. On Monday, bullion gained scarcely 2 percent,
marking a second-largest one-day benefit in a cost so distant this
month.

“In a brief term, we fear bullion could go a bit lower
actually, yet this would be exclusively driven by weaker equity
markets and weaker commodity markets, since of a increasing
risk aversion,” Commerzbank researcher Daniel Briesemann said.

“If we have a demeanour serve out for a subsequent six, or even 12
months, we consider bullion is really good upheld around a current
levels and even some-more buyers should find bullion appealing during these
levels,” he added.

Even yet bullion has all yet ditched a safe-haven tag in
the final month and behaved like a risk-related asset, investors
are gnawing adult a metal.

Gold land in exchange-traded supports strike a new record high
last week, rising by some-more than 2.2 million ounces in only one
month to 69.993 million ounces, roughly homogeneous to sum mine
supply this year, highlighting financier direct for an
alternative to currencies, holds or bonds.

So distant this year, financier direct for bullion has lifted ETF
holdings globally by scarcely 5.0 million ounces.

“We sojourn bullish on gold, since we consider a solutions
are going to need some-more assertive financial policy, that will be
positive for gold,” pronounced Jeremy Friesen, a commodities
strategist during Societe Generale in Hong Kong.

But bullion is doubtful to set new highs as trade activity
slows forward of a year-end, with traders engagement increase and
moving to a sidelines before a holidays.

“I wouldn’t be astounded that we don’t see most strength
towards a finish of a year, yet into 2012 we should see
aggressive financial process being reflected in prices of gold,”
Friesen added.

Euro section leaders face augmenting vigour from other
countries and rating agencies to solve a two-year-old debt
crisis, that threatens to separate adult a single-currency confederation and
sink a tellurian economy, causing trouble in financial markets.

Since attack a record $1,920.30 an unit in September, gold
has depressed by 10.7 percent, underneath vigour from a debility in
the euro opposite a dollar and a flourishing enterprise among
investors to safety their resources with money rather than hard
assets.

So distant in 2011, a bullion cost has risen by some-more than 20
percent, set for a eleventh uninterrupted yearly cost gain.

In other changed metals, china was down 0.5 percent
on a day during $31.94 an ounce.

Platinum was final adult roughly prosaic during $1,545.50 an
ounce, while palladium was adult some-more than 2 percent on the
day during $590 an ounce.

(Additional stating by Rujun Shen in Singapore; Editing by
Anthony Barker)

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA — Entree Gold Inc. (TSX:ETG)(NYSE Amex:EGI)(FRANKFURT:EKA) (“Entree” or the “Company”) has entered into an underwriting agreement today in connection with its previously announced marketed offering of common shares (the “Offering”).

The underwriters have agreed to purchase 10,000,000 shares at a price of C$1.25 per share (the “Offering Price”) for gross proceeds of C$12,500,000. The offering will be made under a prospectus supplement dated November 23, 2011 to the Company’s short form base shelf prospectus dated November 19, 2010, in all provinces of Canada except Quebec. The Company has also granted the underwriters an over-allotment option to purchase up to an additional 1,500,000 common shares at the Offering Price, exercisable for a period of 30 days following closing.

As more fully described in the prospectus supplement, Rio Tinto Exploration Canada Inc. (“Rio Tinto”) also has pre-emptive rights to purchase up to approximately 1,704,548 shares (assuming the exercise of the over-allotment option in full) from the Company at the Offering Price, in order to maintain its current 12.9% interest in the Company. It is not yet known whether Rio Tinto will exercise its pre-emptive rights.

The net proceeds of the Offering are expected to be used to fund ongoing exploration on the Company’s Ann Mason project in Nevada and Shivee West project in Mongolia, and for general corporate purposes.

Closing of the Offering will be subject to a number of conditions, including Toronto Stock Exchange and NYSE-Amex approval.

The common shares have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or any state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the benefit or account of any U.S. person, unless exemptions from such registration requirements are available. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy these securities. There shall be no offer or sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification of such securities under the laws of any such jurisdiction.

This News Release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (together, “forward-looking statements”) within the meaning of applicable securities laws and the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, with respect to the extent and timing of the Company’s proposed offering and the use of proceeds therefrom. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release. Users of forward-looking statements are cautioned that actual results may vary from the forward-looking statements contained herein. While the Company has based these forward-looking statements on its expectations about future events as at the date that such statements were prepared, the statements are not a guarantee of the Company’s future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors and assumptions include, among others, the effects of general economic conditions, risks related to unsatisfactory results of due diligence, the ability to satisfy the conditions of closing of Offering, the proposed use of proceeds, the prices of gold, copper and molybdenum, changing foreign exchange rates and actions by government authorities, uncertainties associated with legal proceedings and negotiations and misjudgements in the course of preparing forward-looking statements. In addition, there are known and unknown risk factors which could cause the Company’s actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Known risk factors are described in the Company’s Annual Information Form for the financial year ended December 31, 2010, dated March 25, 2011 and its Short Form Base Shelf Prospectus dated November 19, 2010, both filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators and available at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company is under no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable securities laws.

© Marketwire 2011

From questions possibly bullion is in a burble to predictions that mountainous prices are customarily around a corner, one thing is clear: a new proviso of recognition for bullion is on us, says Bud Conrad of Casey Research.

Though late to a celebration as usual, a self-evident male on a travel is finally waking adult to a decade-long, 700% boost in a cost of gold, fasten a flourishing hum around a financial metal.

How distant competence it pierce before these discouraging times are over?

The Big-Picture Economic Environment
Kicking things off, we would like to try several themes in sequence to put a stream mercantile conditions in context.

For example, stability debility in practice and housing indicates that a vast slack that started in 2007 persists. Actually, a economy never exited a recession, though rather—thanks to vast intervention—enjoyed a proxy postpone that we have called a “Eye of a Storm.”

We gifted a initial partial of a charge from 2007 to 2009, though by late 2009 and into 2010, vast bailouts, stimulus, and necessity spending constructed a false-dawn recovery. This liberation was many conspicuous in a financial sector, where a supervision eliminated poisonous private-sector debt—including vast amounts hold during Fannie and Freddie—onto a government’s possess change sheet.

We are entering a second half of a storm, as it is apropos unfit to omit a rare and bullheaded emperor debt problems unconditional a globe. These problems are generally apparent in a diseased countries of Europe, where punitive levels of seductiveness rates are pulling weaker members of a Eurozone to a brink. As a tools start to fail, so will a whole.

And a US is not so distant behind, with a possess ancestral levels of supervision debt and deficits using during levels never seen before.

As we during Casey Research have warned of forward of time, in their attempts to avert a 1929-style depression, governments took on a burble in poisonous private debt, stupidly transferring that weight onto a supervision (and taxpayers), causing a problem to morph into today’s emperor debt crisis. Simply, with a supervision debt too vast to ever be repaid, we are now over a indicate of no return.

The private debt problem is not resolved, either. That’s since many of a bad debt on a books of companies and financial institutions was dark by “Extend and Pretend” practices, starting with a rejecting of mark-to-market accounting requirements. Much of this debt will eventually be suggested to be in default.

Worse, since sovereignties around a universe have caused their finances to mellow to such impassioned levels, they are now ill-prepared, and maybe even unable, to step in nonetheless again to alleviate a blow of private-debt deleveraging and write-downs. As a consequence, a subsequent partial of a charge could be enlarged as companies and banks are dragged down.

Furthermore, due to their bad decision-making to this indicate in a crisis, a governments themselves are now confronting a detriment of certainty in their emperor debt, evidenced by mountainous seductiveness rates and a rising cost of credit-default swaps (CDS) for a PIIGS.

There is no approach to recapitalize a Greek debt, and Finland is right to direct collateral, that it recently has. The contamination will extend to a other PIIGS and to a stronger European countries of Germany and France—they can’t also bail out Spain and Italy, that are too vast to fail, though destroying certainty in their possess economies.

Yet absent such a bailout, vast restructuring of weak-country debts hold on a books of a banks in a stronger countries will serve intensify and extend a crisis.

Meanwhile, a European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) is too small, and a resources to cover all a countries in difficulty customarily aren’t there. Economists now know that a PIIGS are good past a indicate of no return, with 130% or so of debt to GDP. The European Central Bank (ECB) will be expanded, like other executive banks, to imitation some-more euros, though still a complement is going to face some-more debt problems.

The ratio of debt to GDP in Europe, a US, and elsewhere (which is projected to customarily boost from here) will lead to a arrange of problems historically compared with Latin American banana republics, collapsed comrade states, and certain countries in Africa.

While this is not being sufficient discussed in a mainstream, a debt of a presumably modernized countries is projected to raze over a levels that are already harassing a PIIGS. Put another way, in a decade customarily ahead, we design a modernized countries to bear a same pain we are already saying in a diseased countries.

Supporting that contention, a new paper by a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) points out that when supervision debt approaches 80% to 100% of GDP, there is a weakening in a economy. Greece and a euro complement aren’t customarily confronting an mercantile weakening, though a relapse of a financial system.

Importantly, a debt-to-GDP ratio of a United States is now (conservatively) 95%, and final from a tidal call of timid baby boomers will make a deficits distant worse. Remarkably, annual deficits of $1 trillion or some-more over a entrance decade are projected.

The US debt-to-GDP ratio will mangle above 100% in dual years or less, and debt could double in a subsequent decade if seductiveness rates arise in unison with a widespread detriment of certainty in a government’s ability to conduct a mercantile and financial affairs.

The subsequent judicious step in this emperor debt predicament is for us to see serve signs of a detriment of certainty in a currency. Such a banking predicament is customarily totalled by rising acceleration that, in turn, leads to aloft seductiveness rates, that make a predicament worse. That’s since a infamous debt “death” cycle starts to form, with seductiveness on a debt begetting ever-worsening deficits begetting ever aloft seductiveness rates that, in time, leave a nation incompetent to even compensate a seductiveness on a debt, let alone compensate down a debt itself.

Sounds dramatic, we know—but that is what is function in Greece. The vital disproportion from chronological events of a identical inlet is that this time, it is not customarily a smaller, less-developed countries—the supposed banana republics—that are in a throes of a financial collapse, though many of a world’s modernized economies. This is certain to finish badly.

In a brief term, a executive banks will imitation adult income for their governments and bankers, though in a prolonged run, a detriment of certainty will turn so good that currencies self-destruct. As a problems extend around a globe, currencies and bond markets will be wiped out together.

In time, new currencies will have to be issued, roughly positively with some form of couple to bullion and other commodities. To tarry what’s coming, we need to know a routine and try to sign how quick it might unfold.

To strew serve light on those issues, in a following we yield information on how critical a conditions is, and interpretation with my predictions for a cost of gold.

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