Showing posts with label HUI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HUI. Show all posts

Fun with Fibs

The silverogosphere is in an orgy of self-congratulation following the Chairman of the Federal Reserve's commitment on Thursday to provide $40 billion per month in monetary stimulus (a.k.a QE3) to buy mortgage debt.

In some respects, the cheerleaders merit their day in the sun. I was certainly personally surprised that more QE was actually announced prior to the presidential election, and utterly flabbergasted that Mr Benanke went so far as to essentially commit to stimulus without an end date. Although any sane observer [amongst whom I hope to be able to count myself, although years of being force-fed crystal meth by GM's harem of harpies has somewhat weakened an already tentative grasp on reality - Ed.] has appreciated for some time that the fiscal debt can only be solved practically through one of three broad policies (dollar devaluation; default; mass confiscation from citizens), it still came as something as a surprise to me that the Fed would be so explicit about their choice of option 1, and then be so aggressive about their mode of implementation.

The meme of "QE to infinity" seems apposite, although it's certainly not a done deal. Regardless, whether gold and silver are the best ways to profit from the Fed's decision or not is another matter entirely: a debate perhaps better left for another day. But let's just say that, although I was pleased with the rise in the d'Arc's gold investments, I was disappointed not to have invested more than I had in the resource companies of Kazakhmys (LON:KAZ) and Vedanta (LON:VED), which have both moved by 10% since Bernanke's announcement - compared with gold's 3.5% and silver's 6%  (meaning that Monsieur d'Arc will be getting an especially nice Christmas present this year).

Regardless, the exam question for this post concerns whether or not it is a good idea to immediately throw one's life savings into PMs, resource (and other) stocks, etc. Perhaps the 'Bernanke bounce' was overdone, and Monday/Tuesday will see a sharp retracement. Or perhaps we are now at the start of a serious bull market in stocks that will eclipse the dotcom bubble, and it's best to get on board as quickly as possible.

Manic Miners



Well hello again.

Service as normal at Screwtape is being resumed after the emotional highs and lows of last week. By 'normal', I do of course mean 'technical analysis and philosophical discussion of precious metals as presented by five prosimians who like to use metaphors such as crème-de-menthe-drinking dung beetles'. So jolly well normal, in other words. And there'll definitely be no more underhand side-swipes or bitchy remarks aimed at the silverogosphere and its noble hosts.

Carnage vs. Calm

Well, that's it. It's official. The gold bull is over. Dennis Gartman said so, so it must be true, given his outstanding track record. And Jon Nadler agrees, so it's as good as in the bag. Even the perma-bullish blogosphere is full of doom and gloom.

I'd agree that things feel pretty bad. Gold has made a series of lower highs since it hit $1900 back in September, and silver is still suffering from its broken parabola of 2 May. It's not surprising therefore that last week's plunge on the back of disappointment that the FOMC minutes didn't endorse new quantitative easing measures (i.e. 'QE III') has rendered an already bearish community almost without hope.

But do the charts support the thesis that gold's bull run is over? Are we sitting on the precipice awaiting carnage, with our already red positions about to go scarlet? Or are the charts telling us that nothing unusual has happened, and that all is calm. Let's take a look, and - for fun - let's keep score on the Carnage vs Calm points...

In Like a Lion and Out Like a Lamb: Gold

[UPDATE: THE SILVER VERSION OF THIS POST IS NOW AVAILABLE HERE.]

The old English proverb of 'in like a lion, out like a lamb' to describe the weather in the month of March seemed to fit equally well the markets this year.

The stock markets started the month with real strength, before going on to give up a good chunk of their Q1 gains and then pulling back some of these gains right at the end of the month (the S&P500 being an exception to this, as it performed solidly throughout March). The PMs started in a similarly fierce manner: Gold closed on 1st March at $1725 and silver at $35.50, before they cratered later in the month to $1625 and $31.25, respectively, and then climbed back to close the month at a timid $1668 and $32.28.

A lot of this can be attributed to end-of-quarter portfolio reshuffling (and in the UK the end of March is also the end of the tax year), but there was also renewed nervousness about the state of the world economy, with Chinese data disappointing many economy bulls. So what's next for the markets (both PM and non-PM) and will April finally be the month when PM bulls start to get paid?

I'm going to break this down into a few posts, I think, as it's a big subject. This is the one for gold (the one for silver is now available here). Let's go to the charts...

Gold and its miners look ready for a big move

This has not been the happiest of weeks for PM investors. The sharp fall in the price of gold was triggered by that most feared of black swan events: Jeanne d'Arc wrote a bullish piece about gold mining stocks.

Literally seconds after hitting the 'publish' button, gold plunged by $35 an ounce, and went on to lose a total of around $70/oz from its pre-JdA-article level.

It's times like this that PM bloggers stare deep into what is left of their soul, throw their pens at the cat in frustration, and swear blind that they'll switch from writing about PMs to penning poems about lovely butterflies or creating daguerreotypes of renaissance sculpture. At least the butterflies won't change their spots seconds after a photo of them is published, and sculpture is harmless (and often armless) enough.

But I soon realised what utter nonsense this attitude was. Because the charts' indications haven't changed. And I still very much believe that we're about to have a big move higher in both gold and its mining stocks. Let me try to convince you again...

Time to go long the gold miners again? (UPDATED) (AGAIN)

[UPDATE: For a major update to this post, please click here.]

Well, Jeanne's feeling very bullish today.

This may be because of Screwtape's fortunate escape from its obligations to pay Brian O'Flanagan a golden parachute on leaving the blog - an escape from financial ruin engineered solely through our having the wit of forethought to get photographic proof of some of his less salubrious peccadilloes (it's always the rich and powerful that end up in the basest of situations, you know...) Or perhaps it's because of my successful coup d'état which has left me the de facto sole contributor for a few weeks.

But whatever the reason, I've spent the last week or so picking up mining stocks. And here's the real reason why.