Hi Bob,
Re: Your comments about ABX on the Gold Paranoid Monitor thread.
Few people talking, are listening to you here. They have their beliefs, their gods and their demons. ABX is one of their big demons, and whatever ABX does will be evil in their eyes. :-((((( As you point out, a successful company should lower costs, increase sales and hedge against negative factors in the market, all of which ABX does very well,...but that doesn't fit with the "evil theory", so all those successes must be ignored or trivialized by the "Gata Gaggle" (gggggggggggg).
The rest of us are happy you keep posting. Your comments and website certainly have helped me in the last year.
There are so many ways to play the market to make money. We all must specialize somewhat. You play the ups and downs in the gold market. I look for junior growth stocks to buy early, sell to make a small profit and keep a couple thousand freebies in case one rises to the $100+ dollar mark. As ABX has some of the best financial, technical and management minds in gold mining today (an opinion shared by some of us SIers), it is very instructive for me to look at what they are doing, and what juniors they are supporting and watching.
I believe ABX reducing the oz hedged, reducing the number of call options written, and replacing them by buying call options has eliminated the risk that a rise in the gold price would lower earnings. ABX people at the Roundup conference in Vancouver a few weeks back were saying steps had been taken to allow Barrick to enjoy huge profit increases should the POG increase, but still protect the profits should the POG drop, and todays announcement supports those assertions and flushes out the details.
I think ABX remains a great vehicle to play the ups and downs of the POG. It's also a great long term growth vehicle in the mining sector as it continues to reduce costs, but at the same time increases sales, cashflow, gold reserves and profits better than any other gold mining company of similar size I'm aware of. |
