Three year slide for precious metal miners

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.

The volatile NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index (HUI)

Since a couple of years, precious metal miners are the absolute dogs of the stock market. Every recovery we enjoyed has rolled over, followed by an even deeper trough than the previous bear market bottom. Even before gold peaked in August 2011, miners had been lagging the rising price of the metal.

Halloween gold slide

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...

Metals not equally precious in their slide

From September until the end of the year is repeated over and over to be the seasonally strongest period of the year for precious metals. Such statistics however are averages and calculated standard errors are considerable. Yet we now face the fourth consecutive year with gold selling off during autumn. Could we do any better investing in any other precious metal ?

Vigorous short-lived bear market bounces

There is nothing as vigorous as a bear market rally. After a severe swoon, the market gets oversold. Earlier sellers see an opportunity to get back in much cheaper, while cautious shorts may want to cover and lock in decent gains. When this mindset gets root among investors and speculators, a bear market rally is born. However, there is nothing as short-lived as a bear market rally. That's why I called them “bear market bounces” in the blog title.

Miners back to square 1.

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. Since Friday Sept 19, Gold is almost flat, while silver is down 0.7% over the week. After the lowest close since several years at $17.5 on Thursday, there is a timid recovery to end the week with. Main victim is Palladium ($772), which sold off quite rapidly after its recent multi-year high above $900. Platinum is taken down in the slipstream to $1297, with the gold-to-platinum ratio now up to 0.94 once again.

Relentless slide ...

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.

Metals not equally precious investments ...

While speculators are focusing on price changes of the metal of their choice to set up a trade, the long term investor is better off studying the price changes over the long haul and the relative price changes of one precious metal to another. It is most common to compare gold to any other precious metal through e.g. a Gold-to-Silver, or Gold-to-Platinum ratio. This tells you how many ounces of the second precious metal one ounce of gold would buy.

Precious Metal Mining ETFs: a benchmark

The 2013 cyclical gold bear market and the crash of precious metal mining stocks leaves investors shattered. Some have been lured in again during the early 2014 recovery, while others are waiting to get their toes wet. A few mining analysts left the scene, while many saw their audience dwindle. Investors with limited funds and/or time for a due diligence study may gain exposure to the precious metal mining sector through purchasing one of the exchange traded funds (ETF's).

Relative strength of gold prices

There are plenty of technical indicators working very well for a short time frames: RSI, MACD ...
However when it comes to determining the relative strength over the long haul of the gold price, or that of any other precious metal or commodity, it is more useful to compare to the average of the preceding period. In the following article, a simple moving average over 250 days is chosen, since that generally coincides with the number of trading days in a year.
Graphs last updated on Oct 21, 2016