A Less than Bullish Perspective on Gold...
goldminingoutlook.com
<<...SUMMARY: SELL YOUR GOLD MINING SHARES!!! My current outlook for gold and gold mining shares has deteriorated to VERY STRONGLY BEARISH, the first time that such a stance has been justified since I began this online newsletter. Many junior gold mining shares are now trading at the same levels that they were in the mid-1990s, when the gold price itself was above $400 per ounce, and many of these companies are still losing money. Those which are actually making a profit are selling at P/E ratios typical of the Nasdaq in its heyday. Speculative juniors have been far outperforming their senior counterparts in recent weeks, as is typical of any market near the top of a bubble. Just because the gold share bubble is not quite as exaggerated as the Nasdaq was in March 2000 doesn’t mean that it isn’t a bubble all the same. Brokerages are generally very positive toward gold mining shares, continually raising their price targets, and even those who are supposedly bearish on gold are using phrases such as “fully valued at current levels,” fearful of looking foolish by actually predicting a price drop, which is again typical of any bubble, when bears are afraid to be bears. Besides myself, there is not a single gold analyst—not one--willing to state definitively on the record that the price of gold is going below $300 per ounce, even though such a decline would be a mere 10% move, whereas many analysts are speaking publicly of $350, $400, and higher. Speculative call buying on gold mining shares, traders’ commitments on gold and on currencies which correlate with the gold price, insider selling by gold mining executives, insider issuance of new shares (Newmont, Harmony, Goldcorp, Agnico-Eagle, Echo Bay), and investor bullishness (now 86% on gold itself according to Market Vane, 100% on gold funds according to Investors’ Intelligence) are at even higher levels than at the February 1996 peak, and are surpassed only by the January 1980 super-euphoria. The kind of bubble which happened in 1979 can only occur in the late stages of a gold bull market; it is very likely that the HUI index of gold mining shares will be at current or even lower levels eight or nine years from now, before such a final bubble is ready to occur. Commercials are likely net short more than 90 thousand contracts of COMEX gold. Physical demand for gold has dropped more than 20% in many areas, including South Asian imports and professional jewelry orders, which are critical to sustaining a gold price above $300. Lots of brokerages, aware of the downtrend in the Nasdaq and fearful that investors would take their money out of their management entirely, have been encouraging their clients to switch into gold shares and gold funds as a survival tactic, to save their own butts, rather than because of any conviction as to their value as an investment. Other investors have found that it is easier to make a single phone call to their mutual fund company to switch from the Nasdaq into gold mining shares rather than doing research into bank CD yields or the relative merits of TIPS or municipal bonds. The mainstream business media has been heavily covering gold and gold mining shares in recent weeks, even more so than in the mid-1990s. A 40% drop in gold mining share prices is a likely scenario over the next several months, and one should not seriously consider purchasing these shares until either gold goes below $270 spot or commercials go net long more than ten thousand contracts of COMEX gold, whichever comes first. One should be aware that short-term fluctuations in gold share prices often overwhelm the long-term trend, no matter how pronounced the long-term trend may be over an extended period of time. For example, gold shares rallied very strongly from late 1972 through their peak in the early 1980s. However, investors who bought gold shares in late 1974, after the first rally stage was essentially complete, were actually losing money in late 1978, four years later. Similarly, in spite of the very strong rally in gold mining shares from late 1928 through 1937, investors who bought gold mining shares close to the first peak in 1930 were behind, not ahead, in late 1936, thus suffering more than six years of disappointment. In practice, most latecomers were shaken out by the sharp downswings, and did not even participate in the profitable final blowoff. Buy and hold can be a wonderful strategy, but only if one buys when prices are truly depressed, not when one buys to “not miss out” on a momentum trend play which is close to reversing or has already reversed. When purchasing any securities, gold mining or otherwise, avoid buying on margin and never purchase call options, so that the magnitude of the eventual gain is the only important issue, rather than the vagaries of precise timing or interim volatility. Always stick with companies that have strong, growing earnings; avoid companies with losses. Occasionally a money-losing company will suddenly turn around and become profitable, but that is the rare exception...>> |
