Precious metal mining - Tactics - Performance relative to gold or silver (2)

(Updated frequently)
The focus of this blog page is on the gold and silver miners from a tactical point of view: how do PM miners perform relative to the price of gold or silver. 
Special attention is paid to the miners covered by the database 'Canadian gold and silver mining', for which a capital weighted index of gold- and silver miners is calculated. Aggregated performance is one thing, it's also very illustrative that miner and explorer performance has been diverging from outperforming the metals by a wide margin to losing ground completely.


Saturday, 29 Jun 2024
Last year a nascent regression between gold miners (using the HUI index of unhedged gold miners) and the yellow metal seemed to interrupt the unabated miner slide relative to gold.


Wednesday 27 Sep 2023
A nascent regression between gold miners (using the HUI index of unhedged gold miners) and the yellow metal may finally interrupt the unabated miner slide relative to gold.


Friday 30 Sep 2022
Precious metals have been weakening all summer and the slide aggravated in September. We probably have seen the bottom on Monday. The last week of September, precious metals have been recovering.


Wednesday, 31 Aug 2022
Never an autumn precious metals an miner rally has been more improbable than in 2022. The July miners crash was only the first stage. The month ended with miners barely following the gold recovery lasting till August 12. The sentiment for precious metals turned sour again, especially last few days as PR's from Jackson Hole don't reveal any softening of the pace of FED rate increases. Those seem now echoed by a similar, though much delayed, stance taken by the ECB.


Sunday 31 July 2022
International tension culminating in the outbreak of the Ukraine war, caused precious metals to spike by end February and the beginning of March. The hesitant first rate FED hike didn't really alter the outlook for the yellow metal. With the benefit of hindsight this was a peak level, hence an ideal exit moment.


Friday, 29 April 2022
The linear regression between the HUI miners index and the gold price which was valid since Aug 2018, has come under severe strain since last summer. Permanently negative residuals are a clear statistical indication that the linear relationship is seriously impaired.


30 Aug 2021
The yellow metal peaked in August 2020 at an all time high, with miners following in the slip stream. While little over one year later, gold only is about 15% off its peak, miners are oversold and lagging gold.


27 Apr 2021
Since the summer of 2018, the HUI gold miners index has been following a regression trend line relative to gold. The emerging trend was first described in September 2019 and confirmed last year.


22 Feb 2021
Europe and the US thaw up after some severe winter weather. Winter frost continues however for gold and silver miners. Not only has gold retreated $317 or 12.5% from its early August all-time-high, gold miners have been lagging: the HUI miners index slid 27.5% over that same time stretch.


31 December 2020
My best wishes for 2021, a year when the situation only can improve.
As 2020 started there was no indication yet that the corona virus having surged in a Chinese city would turn into a world pandemic. After all there had been several similar outbreaks that never spread over a wide area. Since "this time it's different" is the most often heard false prayer, early warnings were met with disbelief. It would take till late February until it became obvious that northern Italy suffered a new outbreak with the nearby ski resorts turning into a vector for contagion for most of Europe. International tourism was to propagate the virus worldwide from March onward.


30 November 2020
The dust around the US presidential elections wasn't settled yet and there was the news on a first vaccine by Pfizer, hitting the market on Nov 9.


10 Oct 2020
The main content of this article also is found on the regular weekly updated blog page: Gold miner Pulse. Its focus still is a tactical approach on how gold and silver miners perform relative to the price of gold or silver.


1 Sept 2020
A year ago the new linear regression between major gold miners (represented by the HUI gold miners index) and the gold price has been revealed. With the yellow metal now way above the interval used to derive the regression relationship, it has been verified that the linear regression still holds.


8 July 2020
The gold price keeps rising early July 2020 towards the symbolic $1800 mark. After a flawed and weaker period since mid May, miners are again responding favorably to the ongoing gold rally, now anticipating $1800 gold, that level being breached while editing this blog !


Whenever interviews of expert mining investors or seasoned CEO's of gold mining enterprises massively emphasize the brilliant outlook for the industry for years to come, you can almost bet on it a correction is about to follow.


Gold Miner Pulse - Friday March 13
14 Mar 2020
The focus of this blog page is on the gold and silver miners from a tactical point of view: how do PM miners perform relative to the price of gold or silver.  I like to 'isolate' this version from the thread of weekly updated blog pages. The abrupt reversion of the gold bull trend and the implosion of all 'white precious metals' indeed is a sudden discontinuity deserving its place in history.


Precious metal and miner 2019 overview and outlook for 2020
31 Dec 2019
Best wishes for 2020
This blog article is monitoring the trends over a 6 and over a 12 months time horizon. Therefore the graphs posted here are showing daily observations year-to-date. For the very long term reference frame, see the articles referenced at the bottom.


New linear regression between the HUI miners index and the Gold Price
28 Sep 2019
Price trends of individual miners are correlated with the gold price. On an aggregated level, a linear regression between the HUI gold miners index and gold may for hold several years. Presently, an emerging linear regression is revealed, fundamentally different from what was observed before.


HUI to Gold regression: the 2008-2010 recovery
16 Sep 2019
What happened to stocks during the 2008 financial crisis needs little explanation. Whereas the broad stock market kept meandering along the lows till March 2009, gold recovered very quickly.



HUI to Gold regression revisited
31 August 2019
During the gold rally which took us from below $280/Oz by end 2001 to $1000 in March 2008, we were repeatedly told that the HUI miners index fluctuated around half of the price of gold (in USD). It was a trading rule which wasn't really questioned in depth and it seemed to hold for several years.


Gold Miner Pulse 2019 (half-year update)
1 July 2019
The focus of this blog article is on the gold and silver miners from a tactical point of view: how do PM miners perform relative to the price of gold or silver.


Miners disappointing
25 May 2019
Miners continue plunging on any precious metal retreat and follow almost reluctantly while gold and silver are recovering. Expectations have aligned with experience until this infernal dynamic got deeply encrusted in the investor mindset.



26 Jan 2019
Last Friday we witnessed a magnificent miner rally as gold broke above $1300 for the first time since mid June 2018.  However, miners have been disappointing for most of the past 18 months. There is no obvious reason why this dire situation would suddenly improve.


Precious metals mining in 2018: a dark cloud with a silver lining & 2019 outlook
Dec 29, 2018
Early 2018 we witnessed gold rallying rapidly to what was to be its 2018 high. Till about mid May, the yellow metal managed to uphold $1300. Miners however have mostly been lagging the advance of gold, with the HUI/Gold ratio in decline and bottoming early September, after gold made its low by mid August.


Miners once more lagging precious metals
Oct 31,  2018
The Randgold - Barrick merger lifted enthusiasm within the mining sector. As the metal turned up with gold breaking and holding above $1200/Oz (despite a rising USD and interest rates creeping up), miners seemed ready for a lengthy rally, especially after HUI/Gold completed an inverted head and shoulders pattern.



The HUI/Gold ratio: what's left in Pandora's box?
Sept 29, 2018
With the yellow metal stubbornly quoting below $1200/Oz, miners suffered badly. The HUI index is closing 2018 Q3 at 141.1. Earlier, n September 10, the HUI closed at a low of 134. We need to look back to early Feb 2016 to find a lower close.



Recovery rally doesn't cure the disease
Aug 25, 2018
Mid August, the HUI miner index plunged to 139: beneath both the Dec 12, 2017 bottom (175) and the Dec 15, 2016 bottom at 163.5. After Friday's rally HUI now posts at 146.8, which still is well below said bottoms. The recovery rally merely alleviates the pain but it doesn't cure the disease. 



What may spark the next miner rally?
Sunday, 25 March 2018
Miners lagging the metals has been an understatement.
Even during last week, with gold up over 2.5% on balance, closing at $1346.8 the miner response was quite meek.  The HUI gold miners index added 3.33%; admittedly more, yet little convincing.


Gold miners persistently lagging the metal
Feb 12, 2018
The latest downturn of gold brought the yellow metal to a Friday close of $1315.7, easing barely 1.22% over the week and still holding on to a tiny advance year-to-date.
However the HUI plunged 7.17% leveraging gold down sixfold. While miners had been persistently lagging the metals throughout 2017, their decline currently is aggravating.


Prepositioning for a January rally
Dec 10, 2017
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.


Persistently lagging the metals
Oct 29, 2017
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.


Linear regression between gold and the HUI miners index
Apr 26, 2017
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.


Miners relative to gold: Long term charts on the HUI gold miners index
March 21, 2017
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. 


Precious metal miners relative to Metal Prices
December 31, 2016
Precious metal prices determine the revenue of gold or silver mining companies. Their mining costs may vary widely and moreover are subject to fluctuations of foreign exchange rates.  Yet it still makes sense to compare miners relative to the metals.


Regression between the HUI miners index and the Gold Price
November 17, 2016
The miners rally since end January has been almost miraculous, with the HUI index more than doubling over less than six months. Since mid August however, much of the gains have evaporated. That doesn't come as a surprise because gold is back down to around $1225, from its 'lofty high' over $1360/oz both in the second week of July and early August.


Gold miner Impulse phase
August 6, 2016
Over half a year has lapsed since Gold and Silver miners bottomed on Jan 19. Time to make an evaluation of the first half year of a rejuvenated precious metals bull market and the impulse phase on precious metal miners.

Gold relative to the Philadelphia Gold and Silver miners index
June 9, 2016
The past cyclical gold bear market has been both lengthy and severe for the precious metals, but for precious metal miners it has been detrimental. How devastating the gold and silver miner bear market has been is well illustrated when plotting a miners index together with gold on a comparable scale.

Gold miner rally: Bull market logic
May 9, 2016
Ever since bottoming barely above 100 on Jan 19, 2016, the HUI gold miners index more than doubled.  It closed at 226,1 on Friday May 6, up 125% from its trough or 103% year-to-date.  However, after peaking at 233.5 by the Apr 29 close, we witnessed a week with wild gyrations, starting with a three days losing streak culminating in the 10.25% landslide loss on Wednesday May 4.  Much overdone so it seems, since the Thursday recovery rally was in fact anticipating precious metals eventually firming on Friday May 6.

Gold mining bear starting its fifth year
Jan 3, 2016
As we start a new year, it's time to make an update on the situation of gold and silver miners, using the approach you also find in the 'gold miner pulse' blog page and/or the miner performance page. Those pages have been updated with fresh information as of Dec 31st, 2015.


Dec 7, 2015
American stock markets rallied towards the Friday close, the late recovery however didn't make up for prior losses culminating in the Thursday slide


Aug 31, 2015
Since almost five years, I've been monitoring how the precious metal miners and explorers covered in the Gold Miner Pulse database fluctuate up and more often down. From a majority of gains over losses few months after the start in Nov 2010, we have evolved to presently only five long term gains left.


July 24, 2013
The summer slump for precious metals has turned into a nightmare, with gold breaking below $1100, platinum into the triple digits and silver well below $15. While the July slide is pretty bad, what makes it worse is precious metals setting fresh multi-year lows.



Gold and miners: identifying the bear market logic
May 11, 2015
During the early years of the secular gold bull in the previous decade, gold miners have been outperforming the metal by a more than decent margin. In its second phase, gold rose almost in lock-step with the miners, when approximating those using the ARCA index of unhedged gold miners (HUI). The narrow range of the HUI relative to bullion has been used as a trading rule, successfully... until it failed as all ' trading rules' did in the 2008 financial crisis


Miners relative to gold: long term graphs on HUI
January 31, 2015

Two gold miner bear markets compared

In addition to the HUI/Gold candlestick graphs shown in previous posting, I include a historic and another long time frame chart of both the HUI index and the HUI/Gold ratio.


Gold miners: three decades for naught
January 27, 2015
The Philadelphia gold and silver mining index (ticker symbol XAU) has been around for decades, with the publicly available data series going back to December 1983. On that first Dec 19 the XAU closed at 107.06, while gold quoted $375/oz. Fast forward to 2015 January 21: Gold topped $1302 (after the long anticipated QE-bazooka by the ECB), while the XAU closed at 81.12. Even though revenues per ounce rose by 247%, the mining index lost 24.2% in well over 31 years.

Three year slide for precious metal miners
December 31, 2014
Buying pressure wanes on broad stock markets, having rallied to new highs only some days after the latest pull-back. Precious metals have been oscillating. On this last full trading day of 2014, gold regained $1200, while silver gained 2.9% to close at $16.27. The Gold to silver ratio still stands at 73.7, barely below its recent multi-year high.


Halloween gold slide
October 31, 2014
It 's not just pumpkins and scary masks. This time there are daggers hiding behind the cloaks and the blood on the streets is more than just tomato juice...

Miners back to square 1
September 27, 2014
Ultimately the broad stock market rally ran out of steam. The S&P retreated from its all time high and now is back to 1982.8. Not that this makes any difference for precious metals. After another rocky week, the metals end mixed. 

Relentless slide
September 21, 2014
The S&P broad market index holds above 2000, within a sigh of its all time high. Bond markets suffer somewhat as rates have risen above the August lows. In the mean time, precious metals continue to slide, irrespective of whether the economic indicators coming through are good or bad, whether the stock market goes up or down or geopolitical tensions ease or aggravate.

Their last trump card...
April 22, 2014
The current circumstances in the precious metals markets are remarkably similar to those on June 27 and 28 of 2013.

Nearing the end of a major pull-back ?
Thursday, 10 April 2014
Any major trend reversal never comes without any hick-up, questioning the reversal. Throughout the gold-miner bear market we have seen quite a few false recoveries, which were merely decent exit points allowing investors to mitigate their loss. In every occasion worse was to come. The major pull-back we faced in the second half of March is one of those key-events questioning the trend. Anybody doubting the reversal should have sold by mid-March, the believers were and still are offered an opportunity to add to their positions.

Miners rally into second gear
February 12, 2014
The worst asset class of 2013 has metamorphosed into the high flyer of the first months of 2014. After a few weeks of hesitation, the gold miners rally gets into second gear. When evaluating miners relative to precious metals, the paradigm change is revealing itself. Throughout nearly the complete gold miner bear market, the main index for unhedged miners quoting on American exchanges (HUI) was losing ground relative to gold. Moreover it rarely even regained its declining 200 days moving average. The trend reversed and HUI/Gold now breaks above its 200 dma.

Miners reviving
January 20, 2014
Over most of 2013, poor precious metal gains and broad stock markets hesitating, would have sent miners sliding. However a different mantra seems to have taken the lead. The HUI index added 3.47% over the week, making HUI/Gold appreciate to ...


January 3, 2014
A happy and prosperous 2014 to all readers.
In addition to the HUI/Gold candlestick graphs shown in previous posting, I include a long time frame chart of both the HUI index and the HUI/Gold ratio.


December 30, 2013
Last two years, we've witnessed a plunge of precious metal prices from before Christmas leading to the New Year. The relentless gold bear raids from mid April onwards, lead to a multi year low for gold on June 28 and the following recovery completely was wiped out with gold equalling the June 28 low on Thursday Dec 19. It seems the gold bear has gotten ahead of itself.
Much the same accounts for the miners, which ceased to leverage down precious metal prices last week and were vigorously reviving, despite meagre gains for the metals. Over the short trading week leading to Friday Dec 27, gold added a timid 0.86% on the Comex close to end at $1213.80, while -after its major plunge- silver added 3.43% closing at 20.08. The HUI index of major gold and silver miners added 4.23% with the HUI/Gold ratio now up to 0.1633, hovering above its decade low.


Saturday, 24 August 2013
After grinding lower the first week of August, precious metals made a U-turn. The sentiment change sent the heavily depressed miners soaring. HUI/Gold made it to 0.20 last week and now stands at 0.195. (for fresh graphs, check the GoldMinerPulse page). While we could barely imagine any value below that 0.20 threshold until recently, we're glad the gloomy days are behind us (at least for a while). Last Friday gold peaked above $1400 intraday for the first time since early June.


Wednesday, 7 August 2013
We 've witnessed a nascent precious metal miner recovery since June 27, as miners have started recovering even before gold found its final bottom below $1200 in the morning of June 28. For as long as the stealth gold rally had legs, miners responded favorably. The gold rally was petering out the week after last posting: The stealth gold recovery rally. Gold has been sliding from July 29 onwards. Despite a small technical recovery last Friday, the gold slide aggravates. Whenever there is some rumor out about "tapering" the QE3/QE4 bond purchase programs of the FED, hell breaks loose.

June 29, 2013
Precious metal investors have been watching in disbelief how gold tumbled through all resistance levels eventually bottoming well below $1200 in European trading and during the NYMEX morning session, yesterday June 28. The recovery rally however was written in the stars ...

June 18, 2013
When plotting the HUI index (basket of unhedged gold miners) relative to gold, we've been witnessing an almost uninterrupted slide since nearly three years. HUI/gold made a post Feb 2001 low last month (well below the crisis bottom level of 2008). As gold held above $1400 a couple of weeks ago, HUI/Gold was flirting with its 0.200 resistance. Until few months ago it was difficult to conceive HUI/Gold ever breaking below that 0.200; yet it has and is again challenging its 0.181 bottom.


June 17, 2013
Among the ever growing family of exchange traded funds (ETF's), there are quite a few leveraged products.Direxion probably is the larger distributor of this particular type of ETF's.


May 20, 2013
George Soros confused the markets with his gold ETF sales. Now he seems having put a on a far riskier bet. Not only he bought a fair stake in GDX, the main large cap gold mining ETF, Soros also gambles on a swift gold recovery though a considerable long position using call options on the Market Vectors Gold Miner Junior ETF (GDXJ).


Apr 20, 2013
Gold price manipulation reached its culmination on Monday with an over-night low around $1320. The multiyear resistance of gold at $1525 was broken the previous week, triggering the plunge. After a suggestion by IMF president Christine Lagarde, rumours were out

Apr 13, 2013
With gold down $84 today and silver shedding $1.81, we can't have much more... and we got more on Monday.
Continuing the slide at that pace, by the end of April we will get paid to carry away those metals previously considered precious... and smelly beggars outside the shopping mall will put down a sign in front of them saying: "no gold please". You don't buy the story? Then it's perhaps the time to stop shorting those metals.


Feb 16, 2013
A graph says more than a thousand words: today Gold Miners hit rock bottom relative to gold.


Jan 13, 2013
Approach
The focus of this blog article is on gold and silver miners from a tactical point of view: how do PM miners perform relative to the price of gold or silver. Special attention is also paid to the miners ...


Sep 8, 2012
Weak employment data spur the expectation on the FED initiating QE3 rather soon, which in turn prevented the stock market from collapsing on the bad news. The S&P ultimately closes with a 0.4% gain.
The expectation of further liquidity injection really kick-started precious metals. Gold had eased to below $1700 but leaped over 2% within minutes. By 4:45 pm gold is up 2.06% to $1736.3. A similar story for silver quoting at $33.67 up nearly 3%. PGM's lag, with Pt adding 0.5% and Pd up 1.25%.

Silver delivery problems expected
Sep 5, 2012
Daniela Cambone (Kitco News) interviews Bill Murphy of GATA, the Gold Anti Trust Action committee.


Jul 02, 2012
Approach
The focus of this blog article is on gold and silver miners from a tactical point of view: how do PM miners perform relative to the price of gold or silver. Since the start...


May 28, 2012 
Gold and Silver Miner weakness has been with us for too long. On the "gold miner pulse" blog page, you find continuous (at least weekly) updates on how major precious metal miners are priced relative...


May 15, 2012
Havoc during the financial crisis
Before the 2008 financial crisis and as late as March 08, when gold peaked above $1000 for the first time ever, the popular HUI index of unhedged gold miners...

Apr 07, 2012
Precious metals miners are unable to change momentum: despite a recovery of both the gold and silver price on Maudy Thursday (April 5), both our GMP-list based indices continued their slide, with a...

Monday, 2 January 2012
The focus of this article is on the gold and silver miners from a tactical point of view: how do PM miners perform relative to the price of gold or silver. Data used are 2011 end-of-year.
Special attention is paid to the miners covered by the database 'Canadian gold and silver mining', for which a capital weighted index of gold- and silver miners is calculated. Aggregated performance is one thing, it's also very illustrative that miner and explorer performance has been diverging from outperforming the metals by a wide margin to losing ground completely.

Apr 23, 2011
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... 

Apr 14, 2011
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%.


Apr 11, 2011
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,...


Apr 09, 2011 
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...


Post 2008 lows for miners relative to precious metals
Mar 12, 2011
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...

Silverminers underperforming silver bullion? 
Feb 27, 2011
As is demonstrated in several articles (1), gold mining majors don’t offer any leverage over gold bullion. Miners outperforming gold during rallies is largely undone by major swoons during gold retreats.

Decades of underperformance
Feb 02, 2011
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.

Gold market has bottomed
Jan 31, 2011
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...

Did you say leverage?
Jan 07, 2011
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...


Goudmijnen: een turbo op de goudprijs ?
http://gwyde.blogspot.com/2010/02/goudmijnen-een-turbo-op-de-goudprijs.html

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