Silvermex / Genco

Silvermex Resources Inc. is an emerging silver producer focused on building a profitable, sustainable silver mining company. The Company is led by a highly experienced and successful team, comprised of top executives from leading corporations in the silver mining sector.

Silvermex's core asset is the producing La Guitarra silver-gold property located in the Temascaltepec Mining District of Mexico. Our technical team is currently implementing efficiencies and developing plans to ensure continued production growth throughout the district. The Company's other area of focus is the recently consolidated Rosario/San Marcial Mining Camp in south eastern Sinaloa, Mexico. The Rosario/San Marcial mining concession consists of two past producing mines, resources and historic reserves as well as extensive production related infrastructure already in place.

FIRST MAJESTIC IS ACQUIRING SILVERMEX; THERE WILL BE NO FURTHER UPDATES OF THIS BLOGPAGE.

Website : http://www.silvermexresources.com/s/Home.asp

Northern Dynasty Minerals

Website: www.northerndynastyminerals.com/

Resource
Since acquiring the Pebble Project in 2001, Northern Dynasty has delineated and advanced one of the world's greatest stores of mineral wealth.

Located on American soil in southwest Alaska, the Pebble deposit is remarkable for both its size and composition. Current resource estimate includes 5.94 billion tonnes in the measured and indicated category containing 55 billion lb copper, 66.9 million oz gold and 3.3 billion lb molybdenum; and 4.84 billion tonnes in the inferred category, containing 25.6 billion lb copper, 40.4 million oz gold and 2.3 billion lb molybdenum. Quantities of silver, palladium and rhenium also occur in the deposit.

In 2007, a wholly-owned affiliate of Northern Dynasty entered a 50:50 partnership with a wholly-owned subsidiary of Anglo American plc to permit, construct and operate a modern, long-life mine at Pebble. Based on Anglo American's staged investment of $1.425 to $1.5 billion, both companies share equal ownership, board representation and rights in the Alaska-based Pebble Limited Partnership.

On Sept 16, 2013, Anglo American withdrew from the Pebble Limited Partnership (read:
http://web.tmxmoney.com/article.php?newsid=62679764&qm_symbol=NDM) Though this returns 100% ownership to Northern Dynasty, it also implies that Anglo American no longer considers the Pebble deposit to be a viable project or that the company grew wary by the environmental opposition against it.

Ticker: NDM on TSX and NAK on Amex
Daily Finance: Key statistics for NAK.

Belgische monoholdings

U leest een artikel van 2011.  Een meer recente blogpost over hetzelfde onderwerp is: Strategische keuze voor monoholdings (oktober 2015).

Monoholdings zijn moederbedrijven boven grote beursgenoteerde bedrijven die als nagenoeg enig actief een aanzienlijk aandelenpakket hebben in het beursgenoteerde bedrijf.

We tellen nog drie monoholdings genoteerd op Euronext Brussel. (Vroeger waren er wel meer.)

·    Financière de Tubize :  http://www.financiere-tubize.be/fr/cp-gen.html, monoholding boven UCB

·    KBC Ancora :             http://www.kbcancora.be, monoholding boven KBC,

·    Solvac :       &nbsp http://www.solvac.be/HPBis/0,,35841-3-0,00.html, monoholding boven Solvay.

De monoholdings hebben met mekaar gemeen dat ze, naast een aandelenpakket in het beursgenoteerde dochterbedrijf, ook een bankschuld hebben aangegaan om dit aandelenpakket te financieren. Per ‘aandeelequivalent’ van het dochterbedrijf, noteert de monoholding daardoor lager, waardoor er een bepaalde hefboomwerking ontstaat.

Raken vastgoedcertificaten buiten adem ?

Benchmark
Enige maanden geleden heb ik voor het eerst de vergelijking gemaakt tussen de BEL20 netto return index en de Petercam BRECS index van de vastgoedcertificaten. Deze laatste is eveneens een return index, wat voor rendementswaarden aangewezen is.
In onderstaande grafiek vindt U een tot 1 december bijgewerkte versie van deze benchmark:

Bel20 netto return versus BRECS, met waarde eind 2009 = index 100% - klikken om te vergroten

De Petercam BRECS index wordt wekelijks berekend. Voor de BEL-20 Netto return zijn er continue observaties, waarbij de slotkoers van de dag werd gebruikt voor deze reeks. De waarde op 31 december 2009 wordt voor beiden gelijkgesteld met een index 100%.

Canadian gold and silver miner performance

Valuation data for a representative list of Canadian gold and silver miners and explorers are maintained on the Gold Miner Pulse site (GMP). On the dedicated ‘Gold Miner Pulse’ page of this blog the performance of the HUI unhedged gold miners index is shown relative to gold bullion. It doesn't look nice: nor over the short term nor over two years, even since the aftermath of the secular financial crisis. In another graph the performance disparity is illustrated among the gold and silver miners of the GMP database. Some lucky picks have been outperforming silver or gold by an impressive margin. Few laggards have lost tremendously despite gold and silver up considerably over the year. A disappointing majority of 61 precious metal miners are in the red since Nov 19 last year. Little individual miner information can be conveyed in one such graph. Therefore, I 'm going into detail to give an idea which miners were good picks and what are the investor's nightmares.

A first analysis in this sense was made in August (See: Stock picking matters).

Over three months later, the performance disparity has only grown, especially near the bottom of the list, though there have been few shifts among miners and explorers in the bottom quintile.

Woluwe Shopping houdt de markt van de vastgoedcertificaten recht

De BRECS returnindex (Petercam) van de vastgoedcertificaten heeft postgevat boven 70.000 (eind 1985 = 10.000). Over de voorbije 12 maanden komt de return daarmee op 16% waarmee de BRECS met ruime marge de returnvariant van de BEL20 het nakijken geeft.

Petercam BRECS index (blauw, linkeras) en dividenrendement (rood, rechteras) - klikken om te vergroten

Dit is in zeer grote mate te danken aan de gestage klim van Woluwe Shopping  (koers +22.5% sinds eind december 2010 en +23.4% over 12 maand). Het is inzake beurskapitalisatie al sinds jaar en dag het zwaargewicht onder de vastgoedcertificaten. Het voorbeeldige beursparcours werkt dit nog verder in de hand. Woluwe Shopping staat inmiddels al in voor meer dan 29% van de beurskapitalisatie van de markt van de vastgoedcertificaten.

Bullish call option spreads

Time value

Speculators familiar with buying options know it too well: the option value erodes over time if the stock stays level. The option value is composed of two components:

·         Intrinsic value (for a call option above strike or a put option below strike)

·         Time value

While the intrinsic value only depends on the option strike and the share price, time value is a different animal. It is larger for a stock that is most likely to end up ‘in the money’. Hence the time premium is higher the more of the following clauses are fulfilled:

·         the stock price is pretty close to the strike (the option is ‘near the money’),

·         the option has some time left for the stock to pass the strike price,

·         the underlying exhibits a high volatility, making it more likely for the stock to bridge the gap to the strike price.

Crazy Horse Resources

Note June 6, 2017: this company was renamed Rockwealth Resources and there has been a 10:1 share rollback. Coverage is discontinued.

Junior gold miners and explorers lagging majors

On the gold miner pulse page of this blog, I have been pointing to the dramatic underperformance of juniors in the brutal miners swoon caused by the recent severe gold correction.

Since early April, junior miners ceased to outperform mining majors. Juniors nor majors were able to keep up with the pace of the gold price rising during summer. Whereas miners withstood a first pull back of the gold price rather well, the correction in the second half of September turned out to be dramatic. Junior miners and explorers paid a high price and much of their advantage over major miners is melting away. 

Junior miner performance on that blog page is measured using the MVGDXJ index. That index is going back to end Dec-2003 and offers a relatively long perspective when compared to the GDXJ Etf itself.

Waarom gaan de goud- en zilverprijs plots onderuit?

Het future casino

Het volume aan termijncontracten (futures) overtreft vele malen de fysieke handel van producent tot verbruiker. Dit is zo voor graanproducten en sommige non-ferro metalen, maar goud en zilver spannen waarschijnlijk wel de kroon. Verschillende on-line handelsplatformen laten zelfs geen fysieke afhandeling toe, zodat een termijncontract de facto altijd neerkomt op een gok op de toekomstige prijs.

Bij het aankopen van een goudfuture, wordt van koper en verkoper een bepaalde beginmarge gevraagd, zodat beiden daardoor aan het contract gebonden zijn. Daalt de goudprijs, dan zal de koper van de ‘future’ zijn marge moeten verhogen. Stijgt de goudprijs, dan wordt aan de verkoper een extra marge gevraagd.

Een koper die een beginmarge van bijvoorbeeld 5% betaalt, waarna de goudprijs 10% stijgt vóór de datum van afwikkeling (settlement), heeft op dat moment zijn beginkapitaal verdrievoudigd. Wie fysiek goud gekocht heeft, noteert gewoon een winst van 10%.

Indien de goudprijs 10% zou dalen, dan wordt aan de koper gevraagd om 10% van de contractwaarde bij te storten, het dubbel van zijn initiële marge, waardoor hij dus 300% verlies noteert. De koper van fysiek goud, noteert gewoon een koersverlies van 10%.

De hefboom bij termijncontracten maakt van de handel in edelmetalen een echt casino. Dit brengt mee dat een hoge volatiliteit inherent is aan de termijnhandel.

Vastgoedcertificaten: een houvast in barre beurstijden?

De voorbije zomermaanden brachten naast regen en onweer ook barre tijden voor de belegger. De schuldencrisis van de begrotingszondaars uit de eurozone werd een vicieuze cirkel waarin na de banken de gehele economie werd meegesleurd in neerwaartse spiraal. Begin augustus kenden ook de doorgaans zo stabiele vastgoedbevaks hachelijke momenten.

‘Selling options’

It has many names: going short an option, writing an option, selling an option.

An option basicly concerns a tradable contract initiated by the party going short the option. Without any party going short, there can be no options. Going short an option is no equivalent of going short stocks, in which case the shorter needs borrowing the stock to sell straight away. He ‘s counting on it to cover later at a lower price and return the stock to the lender.

Options are created ‘out of thin air’. There are professional parties selling and buying options (both call and put options) for different strike prices and expiry dates. They provide liquidity in option contracts to the market and earn their living mainly from the bid-ask spread. There may not be a bid price for options about to expire worthless. The total number of options written 'out of thin air' is the open interest. The higher the open interest, the more liquid an option contract is likely to be.

Precious metal mining ETFs GDX and GDXJ poised for recovery

Miner underperformance

The underperformance of  precious metal miners relative to silver and gold bullion has become disgraceful. It has been the subject of many an article lately and illustrious mining investors have been pointing to this anomaly. 

Stock picking matters

On the Gold Miner Pulse page a graph is shown where the performance disparity is illustrated among the gold and silver miners of the GMP database. Some lucky picks have been outperforming silver or gold by an impressive margin. Few laggards have lost considerably despite the gold and silver bull market; moreover a disappointing majority of 63 precious metal miners are in the red over nearly nine months.

Vastgoedcertificaten: de kaarten geschud

Met de verlofperiode voor de boeg, kunnen we ervan op aan dat de omzetvolumes voor de vastgoedcertificaten zullen terugvallen. Voor wie toch wil handelen, is dat geen gemakkelijke periode. Het verschil tussen bied- en vraagprijs durft al eens oplopen. De koersschommelingen zijn dan navenant.

Formation Metals: Time for reflection

Note: Please observe that you are reading a June 2011 article, which does not reflect the present situation any longer.
Formation Metals quotes on TSX (Symbol FCO - FMETF on AMEX pink sheets -  FCO.TO on Yahoo)
Long time shareholders have had the hard time the company has. After the permitting process took over five years, the Canadian mining company needed looking for cash under more difficult circumstances. About 14 years after the first drillings on the RAM deposit in Idaho, there is finally an outlook for actual production. Mine construction is ongoing but output is not expected within another year. Retrofitting the hydro-metallurgy site near Kellogg has started to enable the cobalt production facility, which will be delivering cobalt with the highest purity.

Vastgoedcertificaten houden beter stand dan Belgische aandelen

BRECS index

De Petercam BRECS returnindex aarzelt de voorbije maand tussen winst en verlies na de rally van de voobije maanden. De vastgoedcertificaten laten daarmee de aandelen achter zich, waar de correctie al het grootste deel van de winst over 2011 heeft uitgeveegd.

Het couponrendement van de certificaten stabiliseert rond 5.7%. De dagvolumes nemen af.

Seabridge Gold

Seabridge Gold (website) is a gold exploration company. Seabridge Gold’s resource base of gold, copper and silver is one of the world’s largest. The principal projects are located in Canada. Their objective is to grow resource and reserve ownership per share. Their risk-reducing strategy: acquire North American deposits; expand them through exploration; move them to reserves through engineering; and sell or joint venture them to established producers for mine construction and operation. Seabridge gold quotes both on the NYSE in USD (Ticker SA) and on Toronto-TSX in CAD (Ticker SEA.TO)

Rome and America - Differences and similarities

A lot has been written on this topic, one contribution more controversial than the other. Many of those just focus on one aspect of society, usually the pet topic of the author. In five paragraphs I'm describing different aspects of both societies: Science, technology and manufacturing, Military spending, Health, Democracy and civil rights and finally Currency debasement and hyperinflation.

GLDX: the proof of the pudding is in the eating

An earlier posting: “GDXJ or GLDX, what to choose in the Gold Exploring Realm?” has been focussing on the differences in approach and ‘investing universe’ between the two ETF’s.

As GLDX now has a track record of over six months, I wish to discuss how this ETF started off its carreer on the stock market.

In spite of the early May precious metal correction, with silver kicked out off its parabolic ascent, both silver and gold are still considerably higher than six months ago, just after GLDX had been launched.

Canadian Gold and Silver Miners Valuation Metrics - update

Over seven months ago, I' ve written the posting which was going to turn out one of the more popular among readers of this blog: 

Valuation Metrics of Canadian Gold and Silver Miners  - Oct 18, 2010 - When dealing with mineral rights of mining enterprises, Canada has its NI 43-101 Metal Valuation Report, a standard for mining companies to comply with when reporting on their reserves and resources.

It was essential in explaining the spreadsheet (Click here to open the spreadsheet. It is updated on a regular basis) The spreadsheet uses the data provided on the website http://www.goldminerpulse.com/ and the previous posting recommends that same website for fundamental analysis of mineral resources and reserves.

Geografische diversificatie: vermindering van risico of verhogen van potentiële winst?

Abstract

We are often told that diversification is highly beneficial for portfolio performance.

... which is only partly true, as markets are rather highly correlated. Correlation within economic sectors of enterprise stock prices across continents is even higher than the correlation between  different sectors of the economy on one single stock market. Correlation between asset classes has proved detrimental during the October 2008 market implosion.

If we are not successful in diversifying away risk, do we at least obtain any excess return?

Samenvatting

Het wordt ons vaak voorgehouden dat diversificatie hoogst voordeling is voor het rendement van een portefeuille... hetgeen slechts ten dele waar is, vermits de markten sterk gecorreleerd zijn. De correlatie voor internationaal gespreide aandelen binnen één economische sector is zelfs hoger dan de correlatie tussen verschillende sectoren op één enkele aanelenmarkt. Een toegenomen correlatie tussen verschillende activaklassen is nefast gebleken tijdens de implosie van de financiële markten in oktober 2008.
Als we er niet in slagen om het risico weg te diversifiëren, halen we dan tenminste een extra rendement ?

Geographical diversification: Risk reduction or Seeking Alpha ?

We are often told that diversification is highly beneficial for portfolio performance.

... which is only partly true, as markets are rather highly correlated. Correlation within economic sectors of enterprise stock prices across continents is even higher than the correlation between  different sectors of the economy on one single stock market. Correlation between asset classes has proved detrimental during the October 2008 market implosion.

If we are not successful in diversifying away risk, do we at least obtain any excess return?

Vastgoedcertificaten in parabolische modus

De Petercam BRECS returnindex (Belgian Real Estates Certificates) heeft een versnelling hoger geschakeld. Nadat eind maart de 65.000 drempel werd gesloopt, ging het in april snel enkele duizenden punten hoger. De BRECS returnindex is kapitalisatie gewogen. Zwaargewichten in deze index zijn de certificaten met grote winkelcentra als onderliggend vastgoed.

Waar het dividendrendement tot voor enkele maanden nog min of meer stand kon houden, is dat bij de versnelde koersstijging die we nu zien, niet langer het geval. De koersstijgingen doen het couponrendement van dit marktsegment richting 5,5% duiken. In het verleden is dit meestal een harde noot om kraken geweest, waarop steevast een stevige correctie is gevolgd, al lijkt momenteel de 70.000 puntengrens binnen handbereik.

Een liquidatiedividend voor Genk Logistics?

Lange termijnbeleggers in Genk Logistics hebben al een en ander meegemaakt. Uit een vorige posting volgende paragrafe:

Tijdens de mislukte overname-saga in de zomer van 2007 (de kandidaat overnemer bleek onvoldoende solvabel om de benodigde kredieten te kunnen krijgen) gingen we richting €280-€300. Er is sinds April 2008 een nieuw huurcontract met Ewals voor het nieuwe gedeelte van de opslagruimte, waarvoor er ook nog een hypotheek loopt eind 2013. Het nieuwe huurcontract kon opnieuw enig enthousiasme losweken en het certificaat noteerde korte tijd opnieuw boven €250. De beurscrisis van oktober 2008 zou ook Genk Logistics niet ontzien en we gingen vanaf toen blijvend beneden €200. De oudere opslagplaatsen werden ontruimd per eind december 2009. Sindsdien is deze ruimte leeg gebleven. De huurinkomsten zijn daardoor in 2010 met circa 16% gedaald. 

Van kwaad naar erger met de zilvermijnen.

Het achterblijven van zilvermijnen bij de explosieve stijging van de zilverprijs
Gemeten naar de verhouding tussen de koers van de GlobalX zilvermijnen ETF SIL en de zilverprijs, zakken zilvermijnen steeds verder weg. Dit proces zet zich door bij een versnelde stijging van de zilverprijs! Dit is hoogst ongewoon. Sinds het begin van de goud/zilver bull markt in 2000, gaf bijna elke rally van de edelmetalen aanleiding tot met een hefboom stijgende goud- en zilvermijnen. De weinige uitzonderingen komen op conto van een dalende aandelenmarkt bij stijgende goud- en zilverprijzen. De correlatie van edelmetaalmijnen met de S&P500, kan in dat geval roet in het eten gooien. Hiervan is momenteel echter evenmin sprake. 

Headwinds for silver miners

Precious metals posted steady gains throughout the day, with gold fractionally above its previous ATH closing at $1475.8 up 1.25% and silver at a new 31year high at $42.18, up a stunning 3.7%.

On our GoldMinersPulse list, gains outnumber losses by 7:3. The gold miners index is up 1.6% to 994, yet silver miners are down 0.75% to 1313!

Dramatic reversal

Silver started the week higher in Sydney and on Asian trading, while gold was hovering at Friday’s ATH. Clouds started packing at the opening in Europe and we could kiss the highs goodbye. All ended worse as gold lost over $12 at $1463 by 4 pm, while silver dropped from its $42 intraday high to below $40 shortly before 4 pm to get back to $40.15, a 80ct or 2% loss since Friday.

Miners follow precious metals up

Miners follow precious metals up

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Gold is up $17 or over 1% to a fresh ATH of $1475 and silver made a 3% quantum leap of $1.28 not only passing the $40 mark but leaving it behind.
Miners follow the precious metals up, in spite of general stock market weakness with crude soaring against a continuous retreat of the greenback.
Gains outnumber losses by 5:2 on our GoldMinerPulse (GMP) miners list, which means that we have a considerable number of drop-outs not at the party!

Index vastgoedcertificaten topt boven 65.000

De Petercam returnindex van de vastgoedcertificaten (BRECS) topt op het eind van het voorbije kwartaal net boven 65.000. De returnindex gaat terug tot eind 1985 en is toen gestart aan 10.000. Door het hoge dividendrendement van vastgoedcertificaten komt een groot deel van de stijging op rekening van de uitbetaalde coupons. De koerswinsten ogen wel mooi voor enkele certificaten met winkelcentra als onderliggend vastgoed. De nog noterende kantoorcertificaten hebben het vrij grondig verkorven. Enkel bij Beaulieulaan en Zenobe Gramme (beide rond €170) houdt de certificaathouder van het eerste uur nog  2/3 van zijn beginkapitaal over. Bij de overige kantoorcertificaten past eerder de omschrijving 'catastrofaal'.

Junior Precious Metal Miners Outperform

Don't they?
After a previous posting on the junior mining index, the obvious question was: do juniors outperform majors? Do they consistently do so? Do juniors also outperform precious metals over the long haul ? There is at least one thing for sure:

Large Miners underperform precious metals
There is plenty of evidence that major gold stocks could not keep up with the rising price of gold. Measured by the HUI/Gold or XAU/Gold metric, major gold stocks manifestly lost track of the gold price evolution on two occasions (See refs: 1, 2):

• at the end of the 20 year bear market in 2000, gold stocks ultimately got shattered as gold bullion bottomed at $250/oz,
• during the autumn 2008 market implosion, major gold stocks dropped vastly more than bullion, which bottomed out barely above $700, losing about 30%, relative to the March-08 peak above $1000/oz.

Major gold stocks never regained their pre-crash value relative to gold. Major silver stocks aren't any better as was shown in a previous posting (Ref. 3). Note that for both gold and silver miners, you may find some happy exceptions to the unpleasant average.

Precious metal mining indices (as HUI or XAU) are composed of mining majors only. So what about junior miners? Do they on average perform any better than large miners? Do they consistently outperform ?

In a previous posting (Ref 4) I have been checking the MVGDXJ, the benchmark index used by the popular GDXJ junior precious metal mining ETF (discussed in an earlier posting: ref. 5, 6).

Novagold

This page contains links to press releases and articles on NOVAGOLD (company website).

Becoming a Pure Gold Play Focused on Donlin Gold

NOVAGOLD offers an unrivaled opportunity for investors seeking leverage to gold. The Donlin Gold project is a uniquely attractive asset which in terms of size, grade, exploration potential, production profile, and jurisdictional safety, is quite possibly the most important project in the world today. NOVAGOLD is well-funded with a cash balance of approximately US$206 million as of August 31, 2013, sufficient to fulfill all of its current financial obligations as well as fund the advancement of Donlin Gold through the permitting process.

Post 2008 lows for miners relative to precious metals

When looking at the relative price level of precious metal miners - as determined by the HUI/Gold ratio, it seems little plausible that gold is in fact barely below its all time high: PM miners look as if their revenues have been falling dramatically. Have investors been dropping their once beloved mining stocks in utter despair?

A Junior Gold Mining Index

March 7, 2011

Those investing in junior gold miners or explorer/developers may scan through their own little universe of stocks they have invested in or are planning to do so. They certainly look at graphs providing the necessary view on historic performance, they compare stocks against one another, but unlike gold mining majors followed by a few precious metal mining indices, there isn’t really an accepted benchmark for juniors. You can read below my comment on this problematic topic:

Silver miners underperforming silver bullion?

As is demonstrated in several articles (1), gold mining majors don’t offer any leverage over gold bullion. Outperformance during gold rallies is largely undone by major swoons during gold retreats. The return for your bravery when investing in gold mining majors is merely additional volatility and underperformance over the long haul. But what about silver miners? Do we observe something similar?

Marcel Thirylaan: Double and Quit ?

Het is niet ongewoon dat de koers van een liquidatie-vehikel zeer sterk fluctueert. Sinds de uitkering van de eerste vereffening eind november 2010 (€45.27), hoort Marcel Thirylaan tot deze categorie. De activa bestaan uit een ingehouden bedrag op het liquidatiesaldo. Na de verkoop van het gebouw (zie ook: Kogel  door de kerk) is de opbrengst van het erfpachtrecht uitgekeerd aan de certificaathouders. Overige rechten (meer dan €300.000) zijn ingehouden om de lopende gerechtelijke geschillen te kunnen bekostigen. De mogelijke inkomsten daarvan kunnen de activa verveelvoudigen.

GDXJ or GLDX, what to choose in the Gold Exploring Realm?

Note: the ticker of the Global-X Gold Explorer ETF has changed to GOEX in 2016.

Decades of underperformance

Gold investors may not like this, but the main Gold & Silver miners index, that has been around for a while, exhibits decades of underperformance.
The gold miners index most referenced now is the "Unhedged Gold Bugs index" with ticker ^HUI. You can find data on Yahoo going back to 1996 for this index. However the Philadelphia Gold & Silver Miners index (ticker ^XAU) goes back way before this. Yahoo posts XAU data from 1983 onwards, but the index may be older than that. One main difference between the two is the inclusion of Freeport McMoran in the Philadelphia Gold & Silver Miners index, with a heavy weight of about 13%.
Recently I've focussed on how the HUI does outperform bullion during the gold rallies, but still fails to catch up since it fell into the abyss back in October 2008. See: Did you say leverage?
As for now I will focus on the Philadelphia Gold & Silver Miners index, abbreviated XAU henceforth.

Gold market has bottomed

January 2011 brought about a severe correction in the gold market. After the steep rally that ended on a multiple top and a new all time high in USD during December 2010, the new year started with a gradual slide, acerbating on news of a small hedge fund having overplayed its hand on a long/short calendar spread in gold futures: traders typically need a lead to follow the gold market lower. The greenback has been weakening since the beginning of the year, putting aside the inverse correlation between the gold price and the USD exchange rate. Main stream press also pointed to significant drops in the holdings of GLD, the major gold backed ETF. So, is this gold price correction about to end soon?

Anatomie van een herstelrally

In de schaduw van de steraandelen opereert op Euronext Brussel de fixingmarkt, waar ondermeer vastgoedcertificaten verhandeld worden met één enkele dagnotering, gevormd om 15:00. Het is een markt waar nieuws schaars is en elke hint in een persbericht belangrijk kan zijn.

Vastgoedcertificaten eindigen 2010 op een valse noot

De BRECS (Belgian Real Estate Certificates) return index heeft 2010 afgesloten op een valse noot, nadat eerder in December het 62500 niveau overschreden werd. Veel had te maken met een flinke uischuiver van Beaulieulaan, het enige kantoorcertificaat dat een behoorlijk indexgewicht heeft. Bij een volume van meer dan 500 stuks ging het certificaat op 23 december €11.5 lager op €162. Dit was een nieuw historisch minimum, terwijl er eigenlijk geen nieuws te rapen viel: het opschorten van de verkoopprocedure dateert al van 21 september. Een mislukte herstelrally bracht ons daarna tot €172 om gisteren terug te vallen tot €163.

Did you say leverage?

A myth often heard is that precious metal miners offer a good leverage over the price of the metals. With precious metals rising the PM miners see their cash flow multiply at constant mining costs. I'm not digging into why this isn't always the case, I just show some evidence rising when comparing the HUI index to Gold.

HUI relative to Gold

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Both graphs below show the HUI (basket of unhedged gold miners), relative to the continuous contract price of gold. High values mean miners are relatively more expensive.

daily (6 months) chart, click to enlarge

Weekly (3 years) chart, click to enlarge. The 200 moving average refers to 200 weeks or close to 4 years. The HUI:Gold ratio consistently stays below its 200 weeks moving average and is about to drop below its 50 weeks moving average. 

We saw excellent gold rallies over the past six months with gold strengthening by $200/Oz between mid July and end December. Gold mining earnings being leveraged to the price level of their output, you could expect a stellar performance of the HUI, with an increase of the HUI:Gold ratio. In the midst of the rallies this indeed worked out.

However, over the short term (graph over a 6 months lapse, daily observations) you'll notice the HUI turning weaker relative to gold during any correction, amplifying the decline of Gold. There is some support at the 0.37 level. We're still above that one. The HUI/Gold ratio dropped below its 50 days moving average (dma). It's about to drop below the 200 dma if weakness continues today. We find pull backs towards a support for the HUI:Gold ratio, despite stronger gold prices. (top graph)

A round-up

Best wishes for 2011.

I started this blog back in November 2009. Initially I mainly intended to keep track of valuable postings that otherwise would get lost and snowed under on different forums.

Ambition grew over time as I realized I slowly gathered an audience. This isn’t evident, considering that the blog is bilingual and initially most postings were written in Dutch for a local public. I’m not posting on highly popular or controversial topics either: asset classes less covered by mainstream media.

There’s more blogs covering mainly gold or related assets (you find them in the right side margin). The more popular ones mainly convey a political message criticizing monetary policy and/or gold price manipulation.