Pre-positioning for a January rally

For the seventh consecutive year, there has been no autumn precious metals rally. About the best we got were some strong September months, after which a new slide was taking grip, occasionally interrupted by a half hearted recovery attempt.

Miner ETF's going down with the herd

Miner ETF's are not a valid alternative to avoid the lagging of precious metal miners compared to bullion or bullion ETFs.

Persistently lagging the metals

The last downturn of gold and silver brought the yellow metal to a Thursday close of $1266.2 to end the week at 1273.2, easing barely 0.53% over the week. However the HUI plunged 5.31% leveraging gold down tenfold. Miners have been persistently lagging the metals for most of 2017. 

Euro Gold: a foreign perspective on the recent rally

There have been plenty of market comments on gold breaking above $1300/oz and holding on. Geo-political tensions on the North-Korean long-range missile launches and on nuclear tests - the last one with an H-bomb - predominated.  As we write September, raising the debt ceiling is another tough issue, possibly propelling gold.

Primero Mining: from heaven to hell

Primero Mining slid to the last but one position in the Canadian Gold Pulse database in terms of return since inclusion. Remarkably, this miner used to be one of the better performers in 2014, when the miner bear market had slashed mining stock valuations across the board.

Review of gold price volatility: 1973 till 2017

It’s often heard that gold takes the staircase up, but the elevator down. A gold rally would then consist in a gradual process of relatively small but consistent daily upward moves. The gold cartel (bullion banks and investment banks, backed by the FED) would not allow gold to rally over 2% daily.

Is a 'Palladium - Platinum price inversion' in the cards?

A 'Palladium - Platinum price inversion' is it conceivable? Well, there has been a precedent:

Near the end of the 20th century, the days of cheap Palladium were numbered. Norilsk used to have ample Palladium supply after starting up its large Russian nickel mine. As the supply overhang disappeared in the late 1990's, the Pd price surged. Remember that gold quoted near its bear market bottom at that time. It didn't take much time for Palladium to leave behind gold. During 1999 Palladium was challenging the Platinum price, occasionally surpassing it on its rocky ride to the top.

Global mine production of gold and silver

While explaining very long wave patterns in precious metal prices, it is often stated that "low prices are the cure for low prices". The underlying rationale is that low prices impose marginal mine production to close down thereby diminishing global output.  Resulting high prices would then allow mining companies to ramp up production by bringing on line mines and ore layers that were not profitable at the much lower precious metal prices.  These simplifications are tending to overlook the essential.

Linear Regression between the Gold Price and the HUI miners index

As gold has broken above its $1300 resistance, enthusiasm for the miners is still at the back-burner. We are miles away from the collective euphoria witnessed only little over a year ago.

Graphs were updated on Oct 10, 2017.

Canadian Miners Performance Update

With the yellow metal well above $1250, miners have rallied from their correction bottom reached mid December 2016.  On April 12, the HUI index is up 33% from this mid December bottom, yet from its bear market bottom that adds up to a more impressive 115%.  However, from its August rally top the HUI still is down 25%.  Following tables shed light on how the individual explorer, developer and mining stocks performed during these hectic days.

Miners relative to gold: Long term charts on the HUI gold miners index

Miners and Gold bullion

There clearly is a good correlation between miners and gold bullion, which doesn't come as a surprise. However, when the much claimed leverage is concerned, it seems to get a bit tricky. There sometimes is upside leverage with miners outperforming a rising gold price. We've also witnessed miners lagging gold in its ascent. Yet invariably, gold retreating implies an ugly decline for gold miners. 

Abnormal returns

The 2017 Credit Suisse Global Investment Returns Yearbook (CS-GIRY) has been released.  This is the kind of message part of the investment community is looking for in the second half of February.

A case for the 'white precious metals'

The precious metal recovery in January last year was led by gold, with the white precious metals - especially silver and platinum - following reluctantly. The idea of a more sluggish growth in China translated into expectations of lower demand for industrial metals. In January 2016, copper quoted at a decade low.