@heartwarming HMY earnings report -- trotsky, 10:29:01 10/31/06 Tue
turnaround situations such as HMY now represents are often the best plays. with the Rand gold price having basically given no ground since the high in the dollar PoG in May, and a number of new projects in the pipeline, it could well turn out to be more than just a turnaround play. it may well be viewed as a growth story once again, which could narrow the discount at which it trades to other major producers dramatically.
it also remains an interesting situation from a longer term technical PoV. recall that the stock's last major top was back in February - since then it has produced what looks like a corrective sequence of the a-b-c-d-e type. while one can never be certain if a wave count will turn out to be correct, the point is that if it IS correct it would imply there's a lot of potential waiting to be realized.
HMY, 1 year - note corrective nature of trading range
stockcharts.com
[from Ork: the depth of Heinz' knowledge is astounding]
@OT world chess championship match -- trotsky, 08:08:11 10/31/06 Tue
Vladimir Kramnik won, but Topalow was the one who i would have wished to win (unfortunately he made a number of unnecessary mistakes, such as e.g. overlooking a mate in three moves in game two - which he ended up losing after a grueling 7 hours of play, marked by numerous mistakes by both players).
why am i saying that? because current world number one (in terms of ELO points) Topalov (ELO 2813, 1 point higher than Kasparov's 'frozen' ELO rank), has brought fresh wind into top level chess. the times of quick draws are over - Topalov fights to win every game. and what an admirable fighter he is. for instance, he won the last two MTel tournaments in Sofia after having fallen 4 full points behind in the first half of both tournaments. lesser players would have buckled under the psychological pressure, would have started to play less aggressively, etc. - but not Topalov. he fights to win even in seemingly hopeless situations, and more often than not does in fact end up winning.
in Elista in his match against Kramnik, he actually lost the first two games - in a 12 game match on this level this is an extremely difficult situation to find oneself in, especially as Kramnik has a well-deserved reputation as one of the best defensive players. not even Kasparov managed to breach Kramnik's fortresses in 15 games in their match in 2000.
however, in spite of this, Kramnik only managed to secure his win in the final tie-break game (they played altogether 4 blitz games in the tiebreak). upon seeing Topalov's blunder 44...R:c5?? my heart sank. Kramnik had made a lot of mistakes himself during the match, but this he couldn't possibly overlook. as you can see below, he wins an entire rook after this move:
Kramnik vs. Topalov, final tie break game: 1. d4 - d5, 2. c4 - c6, 3. Kn f3 - Kn f6 , 4. Kn c3 - e6 , 5. e3 - Knbd7,
6. Bd3 - d:c4 , 7. B:c4 - b5, 8. Be2 - Bb7, 9. 0-0 - Be7, 10. e4 - b4, 11. e5 - b:c3, 12. e:f6 - B:f6, 13. b:c3 - c5, 14. d:c5 - Kn:c5, 15. Bb5 + - Kf8 , 16. Q:d8 + - R:d8, 17. Ba3 - Rc8, 18. Knd4 - Be7, 19. Rfd1 - a6, 20. Bf1 - Kna4, 21. Rab1 (!) - Be4, 22. Rb3 - B:a3, 23. R:a3 - Knc5, 24. Knb3 - Ke7, 25. Rd4 - Bg6, 26. c4 - Rc6 (?) , 27. Kn:c5 - R:c5, 28. R:a6 - Rb8, 29. Rd1 - Rb2, 30. Ra7 + - Kf6, 31. Ra1 - Rf5, 32. f3 - Re5, 33. Ra3 (!) - Rc2 (Kramnik keeps bettering the positions of his rooks) , 34. Rb3 - Ra5, 35. a4 - Ke7, 36. Rb5 - Ra7 , 37. a5 - Kd6, 38. a6 - Kc7, 39. c5 - Rc3, 40. Raa5 - Rc1, 41. Rb3 - Kc6, 42. Rb6 + - Kc7, 43. Kf2 - Rc2 +, 44. Ke3 - R:c5 (??) (the final, decisive blunder) 45. Rb7 + (!)
Topalov resigns, as he now loses a rook without compensation.
glossary: R=rook, Kn=knight, B=bishop, Q=queen, K=king, moves without specific designation are pawn moves. 0-0 = kingside castling.
+ = check! , (!) = good move! , (?) = bad move! , (??) = blunder.
@gold supply / demand -- trotsky (), 07:00:33 10/31/06 Tue
a recent headline breathlessly asserts:
"Gold Supply Likely to Swamp Demand"
what follows is this article, which looks at the 'analysis' published by (LOL) Jessica Cross:
it makes no sense, but there it is...
thestreet.com.
please note: this type of traditional commodity supply/demand analysis is an exercise in futility with regards to gold. since nearly all the gold ever mined is still in existence, the theoretical 'gold supply' at any given time is close to 140,000 tons.
to argue that a 100 ton p.a. shift in demand here, and 50 ton p.a. shift in supply there (and so forth) has any influence on the likely future gold price is complete nonsense.
this error is widespread however. for instance, many CEOs of gold mining firms tend to issue similar statements to buttress their bullish arguments (they're usually of the type "mine supply is set to fall over coming years by X% p.a., and thus we're bullish").
in reality, these tiny fluctuations in marginal supply/demand every year are about as meaningless as it gets. gold is NOT a 'normal' industrial commodity. its price is primarily a function of its monetary value, which in turn is partly derived from the fact that the existing above-ground stock of gold IS as large as it is.
if one were to apply traditional commodity type supply / demand analysis rigorously, one would have to state something along the lines of "current warehouse stocks of gold are large enough to supply the market for the next 35 years..." (by contrast, warehouse stocks of e.g. nickel are just enough to satisfy one week worth of global demand). it should be obvious even to Ms. Cross that this doesn't exactly make a lot of sense.
in short, the analysis presented in the article linked above is a waste of time at best, or alternatively it's deliberate disinformation. if the analysts are really serious about it, then they simply don't understand the gold market and should look for a different profession (they could become copper analysts for instance). |
