Three Charts Every Trader and Investor Must See

Understanding the stock market and its potential through the use of technical analysis and historical price events has been proven repeatedly to outperform all forms of fundamental trading styles. The following is a story that walks you through my experience, the shift in my mindset and how I came to the conclusion that the three charts I share in this article are critical to your understanding of to make money in today’s market!

When I first learned to trade, I got all caught up with researching companies and finding the ones with the best earnings and future growth. I did that for several years after studying and following many “professional traders” who said it was the best way to trade and invest long term. We lost our shirts during the 2000 bear market by continuing to trade on fundamentals as stocks fell in value week after week. Even the companies that showed quarterly earnings growth fell in value – none of it seemed to make any sense to me, and it was very frustrating.

Losing money when buying the best companies made no logical sense, making me step back from the markets and ask myself, ‘what am I doing wrong here‘. People today are asking themselves the same question given today’s dizzying markets:

· Telsa shares fell from $971 a share down to $347, whopping 63% drop, in only a few weeks and then rebounded again too xx

· Netflix is down 30%, even though people are stuck at home desperately trying to find things to watch)

· Amazon has fallen 26% in the past couple of weeks despite soaring demand for their delivery services

· GDXJ, the gold miners sector that is typically a safe haven during times of volatility, crashed 57% even though gold is usually a safe haven during times of volatility.

So, what was I doing wrong? I started calling and visiting traders who were making money during the bear market to see what they were doing, and 100% of them were doing the same thing – Trading with Technical Analysis. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, per se. I was simply using the wrong tools and analysis for success!

What is Technical Analysis? In short, it’s the study of price, time, and volatility of any asset using price charts and indicators. Traders use technical analysis to find cycles and patterns in the market and trade on the analysis of preferred indicators as opposed to the fundamentals of a company and/or the economy in general.

When you start studying technical traders, you will notice every trader has a particular time frame, a preferred set of indicators, and trading frequency that fits their unique personality and lifestyle. Their brains can see the charts in ways you and I may not see them to predict future price direction over the next few hours, days, weeks, or months ahead. I quickly learned there are infinite ways to trade using technical analysis.

I was very surprised by how much these pro traders allowed me. While standing over their shoulders, I was looking at their charts to try to divine their high-level strategies and learn how they think, analyze, and trade. It was amazing how different each of them traded the market. Some traded currencies; others traded stocks, indexes, options, futures, etc. Most were day traders, swing traders, or a mix of the two. But none of them gave me their secret sauce. That is why I turned 100% of my focus to technical analysis. I was excited at the prospect of being able to profit from both rising and falling prices and no concern for anything other than price action reduced my research time dramatically. It was and is the biggest AH-HA moment of my life and a turning point for my career as a trader.

The year was 2001, when I made the shift to technical analysis. I unsubscribed from everything fundamental based. I canceled my CNBC, stopped listening to news, and stopped reading other people’s reports altogether. My goal was to create my own technical trading strategy that best suited my personality and lifestyle. I would have to discover the securities I was most comfortable trading, the frequency I would trade, and the type and amount of risk I was prepared to take.

I traded options, covered-calls, currencies, stocks, ETFs, and futures. From day trading to position trading (holding several months), I tried it all, hoping something would click for me to pursue at a much deeper level. Day trading, momentum, and swing trading were my sweet spots. Having three of them was a bonus as I know some traders only ever master one in their lifetime if they are lucky. I grew a liking for trading the major indexes like the DJIA, S&P 500, and Nasdaq… great liquidity with big money always at play.

Along my journey, I realized that if I could predict the overall market trend direction for the day or week, then I could day trade small cap stocks in the same direction as the index, knowing 80+% of the stocks follow the general stock market trend. I could generate much larger gains in a very short period of time. As time went on, I became comfortable predicting, trading, and profiting from the indexes, and my new trading strategy began to emerge.

I was fortunate enough to start learning about the markets and trading in college with a $2,000 E-Trade account, and then retiring (kinda) in 2009 at the age of 28. I built my dream home on the water, bought cars and boats, and spent time traveling with my growing family. I love trading and sharing my analysis with others – it is better than I had ever imagined and why I continue to help thousands of traders around the world every day with these video courses Trading System Mastery, and Trading As Your Business.

I contribute 100% of my trading success and lifestyle to the fact that I embraced technical analysis, where my strategy involves nothing more than price movement, position-sizing, and trade risk management techniques. All these allow me to easily reduce exposure, drawdowns, and losses with proper position sizing and protective strategies. If you want quick and simple, read about my journey and core trading tools in my book Technical Trading Mastery – 7 Steps to Win with Logic. My strategy is represented by human psychology and historical trading, as expressed in the three charts below.

Chart 1 – Human Psychology is What Drives Price Action

This chart is my favorite as it explains trader and investor psychology at various market stages. It also includes a simplified market cycle in the upper right corner, letting you know where the maximum financial risk is for investors and the highest opportunity for a trade.

Chart 2 – 2000 Stock Market Top & Bear Market That Followed

The chart may look a little overwhelming, but look at each part and compare it to the market psychology chart above. What happened in 2000 is what I feel is happening this year with the stock market sell-off.

In 2000, all market participants learned of at the same time was that there were no earnings coming from their darling .com stocks. Knowing they were not going to make money for a long time, everyone started selling these terrible stocks, and the market collapsed 40% very quickly.

What is similar between 2000 and 2020? Simple really. COVID-19 virus has halted a huge portion of business activity, travel, purchases, sporting events, etc. Everyone knows earnings are going to be poor, and many companies are going to go bankrupt. It is blatantly clear to everyone this is bad and will be for at least 6-12 months in corporate earnings; therefore, everyone is in a rush to sell their stock shares and are in a panic to unload them before everyone does.

Chart 3 – The 2020 Stock Market Top Looks to Be Unfolding

As you can see, this chart below of this year’s market crash is VERY similar to that of 2000 thus far, it’s based on a similar mindset, which is the fear of losing money, which causes everyone to sell their positions.

I am hopeful that we get a 25-30% rally from these lows before the market starts to fall and continue the new bear market, which I believe we are entering. Only the price will confirm the direction and major trend to follow, and since we follow price action and do not pick tops or bottoms, all we have to do is watch, learn, and trade when price favors new low risk, high reward trade setups.

It does not matter which way the market crashes from here, we will either profit from the next leg down, or will miss/avoid it depending on if we get a tradable setup. Either cause is a win, just one makes money, while the worst case scenario just preserves capital in a cash position, you can’t complain either way if you ask me.

Before you continue, be sure to opt-in to our free market trend signals before closing this page, so you don’t miss our next special report!

Concluding Thoughts

In short, is if you lost money during the recent market crash, then you likely have not mastered a technical trading strategy and do not have proper trade management rules in place. All traders must manage risk and trades to be sure you lock in profits and limit losses when prices start pullback or collapse. Without either of these, you will not be able to achieve long term success/gains, and that’s a fact.

While we can all make money during a bull market when stocks are rising, if you cannot retain or grow your account during market downturns, then you may as well be a passive buy and hold investors. You are better at riding the emotional investor rollercoaster without wasting your time and effort as a trader if you are not going to spend the time and money to learn to follow someone to become a successful trader. Without proven trading strategies or someone to follow, you are more likely to underperform a long term passive investor.

I get dozens of emails from people every week trying to trade this wild stock market and use leveraged ETFs, which doing so during these unprecedented market conditions is absolute craziness if you ask me.

These people think that because there are big moves in the market, they should be trading. That big money should be made trading them, which drives me crazy because it could not be further from the truth unless you are a scalp or day trader. To me, in this market condition, it’s about preserving capital, not risking it, in my opinion.

A subscriber to my market video analysis and ETF trading newsletter said it perfectly:

“Always intrigues me how many amateur surfers get to the north shore beaches in Hawaii, take one look at monster waves and conclude it’s way too dangerous. Yet the amateur trader looks at treacherous markets like these and wants to dive right in!!” Richard P.

I have to toot my own horn here a little because subscribers and I had our trading accounts close at a new high watermark for our accounts. We not only exited the equities market as it started to roll over we profited from the sell off in a very controlled way.

I hope you found this informative, and if you would like to get a pre-market video every day before the opening bell, along with my trade alerts, visit my ETF swing trading visit my website at The Technical Traders.

Chris Vermeulen
Founder of The Technical Traders 

Why Corporate America Can’t Prop Up Stocks Much Longer

By Justin Spittler

Corporate America is bracing for tough times. Since you’re reading an investment newsletter, you likely own stocks. And if you’re like most investors, you keep up with how the companies you own are performing. You might even listen to quarterly “earnings calls,” which are when CEOs present results and give their outlook on the business.

Most of the time, CEOs act as cheerleaders on these calls. If business is bad, they’ll say business is good. If business is good, they’ll say it’s great. And CEOs are notoriously optimistic about the economy. After all, thousands of investors and analysts listen to these calls. CEOs know their stock can crash if they’re pessimistic about the business or economy. Because many CEOs will say anything to make their stock go up, we don’t put much stock in their words. We pay much more attention to their actions. And right now, large U.S. companies are acting like very tough economic times are ahead.

Business investment fell 2.2% last quarter..…
This metric measures how much companies spend on property, plant, and equipment. It was the third straight quarter that business investment fell. That hasn’t happened since the 2008-2009 financial crisis. We wouldn’t see this if the economy was headed in the right direction. Companies would be building more factories. They’d be buying more machinery. They’d be spending more money on research and development.

Instead, companies have cut back on investments. This tell us they don’t see many good opportunities. That’s a bad sign for the economy, yet stocks keep rallying. The S&P 500, Dow, and NASDAQ have all recently hit new record highs. At this point, you’re probably wondering what’s keeping stocks afloat if it’s not the economy.

Companies have spent about $2.5 trillion on “share buybacks” since the financial crisis..…
A buyback is when a company buys its own stock from shareholders. This can lift a company's stock price.
According to investment bank Goldman Sachs (GS), buybacks have been the biggest driver of U.S. stock performance since the financial crisis. Buybacks also reduce the number of shares that trade on the market.

This boosts a company’s earnings per share. But buybacks don’t make a company more profitable. They only make profits look bigger “on paper.” Companies have been buying up their own stock for two reasons: 1) They don’t see many growth opportunities. And 2) it’s incredibly cheap to borrow money.

The Federal Reserve has held its key interest rate near zero since 2008..…
The Fed cut rates to encourage households and businesses to borrow and spend more money. Mainstream economists thought this would “stimulate” the economy. It didn’t work. The U.S. economy has grown at an annualized rate of just 2.1% since 2009. This makes the current “recovery” the slowest by far since World War II.

The Fed did get folks to borrow huge sums of money. U.S. corporations have borrowed more than $10 billion in the bond market since 2007. Last year, they issued a record $1.5 trillion in bonds.
Buybacks are a big reason companies borrowed so much. MarketWatch reported last week:

Companies have been taking on piles of debt to finance buybacks, leading the total debt on the S&P 500 to grow 56% during the past five years.

According to Yahoo! Finance, companies in the S&P 500 funded 22% of last year’s buybacks with debt. This year, debt paid for 39% of share buybacks.

Corporate debt is now dangerously high..… 
According to Barron’s, corporate debt now equals 45.3% of gross domestic product (GDP). The only time this key ratio has ever been higher was in 2009, when it hit 45.4%. If the economy was doing well, this wouldn’t be such a big problem. Companies would be making enough money to pay their debts.

But right now, Corporate America is struggling to make money. Profits for companies in the S&P 500 are on track to fall for the fifth straight quarter. That hasn’t happened since the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
There’s no telling when this earnings drought will end either. According to research firm FactSet, analysts expect third quarter corporate profits to fall 1.7%. The third quarter ends on September 30.

Keep in mind, the U.S. economy is technically in a “recovery” right now. Imagine what will happen to corporate profits during the next recession. The more profits fall, the less money companies will have to prop up their shares with buybacks.
  
Companies have already started to cut back on buybacks..…
According to Business Insider, buybacks fell 18% last quarter. This sharp decline in buyback activity followed a near record breaking first quarter, in which companies in the S&P 500 spent an incredible $166 billion on buybacks. That’s the second most ever, and the most in one quarter since 2007. We don’t know exactly why companies are suddenly spending less on buybacks.

Maybe it’s because corporate profits are drying up. Maybe companies are starting to realize they have too much debt. Or maybe it’s because stocks are expensive. According to the popular CAPE ratio, stocks in the S&P 500 are 62% more expensive than their historic average. Since 1881, U.S. stocks have only been more expensive three times: before the Great Depression, during the dot-com bubble, and leading up to the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

Like any investment, buybacks only make sense when stocks are a good deal. With stocks as expensive as they are today, buybacks are a terrible use of money.

Without buybacks, there won’t be much to keep U.S. stocks from falling..…
If you own stocks, take a good look at your portfolio. We recommend that you get out of any company that needs buybacks to retain shareholders. We also encourage you to put 10% to 15% of your wealth in gold. As we often say, gold is real money. It’s preserved wealth for centuries because gold is unlike any other asset. It’s durable, easy to transport, and easily divisible.

Gold is also the ultimate safe haven asset. It’s survived economic depressions, stock market crashes, and full blown currency crises. When investors are nervous about stocks or the economy, they buy gold.
The price of gold has jumped 27% this year. It’s beat the S&P 500 4-to-1.

If you don’t already own gold for protection, we encourage you to do so immediately..…
According to Casey Research founder Doug Casey, the financial system is held together by “chewing gum and bailing wire” right now. When the public wakes up and realizes this, “they’ll flock to gold… just as they’ve done for centuries.” Doug thinks this could cause the price of gold to easily soar 200% in the coming years.

You could make 2x, 5x, or 10x that much money in gold stocks..…
Yesterday, we showed you how leverage works in the resource market. As we explained, this powerful force is why gold stocks can soar even if the price of gold doesn’t rise by that much. This year, gold’s 27% jump caused the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX), which tracks large gold miners, to soar 128%.

Some folks might see that and think they missed their chance to buy gold stocks. But regular readers know gold stocks can go many times higher. During the 2000-2003 bull market, the average gold stock rose 602%. The best ones returned more than 1,000%. We expect even bigger gains in the coming years. To learn why, watch this short presentation. In it, Doug explains why we’re headed for “the biggest gold mania” he’s even seen.

By the end of this video, you’ll know why there’s never been a better time to own gold stocks. You’ll also learn how to make the most of this new gold bull market. We’re talking gains of 1,000%...2,000%...even 5,000%. Those kind of returns might sound impossible. But as you’ll see, Doug's hit many “home runs” like this throughout his career. And for the first time ever, he's showing the world exactly how he did this.

To learn Doug’s SECRET to making giant gains in gold stocks, watch this free video.

How Will Negative Interest Rates, the War on Cash, and “Helicopter Money” Affect the Markets?

Today, we have something special to share with you. Instead of the usual “Chart of the Day,” you’ll find a six-minute video presentation put together by our colleagues at Palm Beach Research Group.

In the video below, Palm Beach Research Group co-founder Tom Dyson and Palm Beach Letter editor Teeka Tiwari discuss how radical government policies are affecting global financial markets. As Tom and Teeka explain, these central bank “experiments” will have severe side effects. They could even push the price of gold to $5,000. To learn why, watch the video below.

If you like what you saw from Tom and Teeka, we encourage you to sign up for their “speed round” training series. Click here to get started.

The article Why Corporate America Can’t Prop Up Stocks Much Longer was originally published at caseyresearch.com.

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Time to Move Capital into Next Bull Market – Part I

Our trading partner Chris Vermeulen just shared with us his take on what most traders are missing when it comes to market rotation. It's a great reminder of what so many of us did so wrong not to long ago. Let's play this different this time.

If you remember the dot com bubble as clearly as I do and are a technical analyst then you will recall the month which the NASDAQ broke down and confirmed a new bear market has started. The date was November of 2000.

You may be wondering why I bring this up. What do tech stocks have to do with commodities?

Good question because they have nothing in common. But the key here is that when a bull market ends in one asset class that money is shifted into another. That money moved into commodities and resource stocks and in a big way. Precious metals and miners exploded, surging an average of 1000% return (10 times ROI) over the next six years, topping out in 2008. In fact, these resource stocks bottom the exact month which the NASDAQ confirmed it was in a bear market on Nov 2000.

Compare Dot-Com Bubble & Burst to Precious Metals Stocks 

Over the next couple of weeks, I will be sharing some of my top stock picks in the metals sector (gold, silver, nickel, and copper). If you missed the 2001 and 2008 metals bull market then you best pay attention and be sure you don’t miss what is about to happen.

Read Chris' entire post and chart work here > Time to Move Capital into Next Bull Market – Part I



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Going Vertical.....Our Next Online Event

There are again signs on the horizon that the next gold bull market may not be far off.

On February 11, Bloomberg reported, “Gold producers with cash on hand are on the hunt for cheap mining assets as rising prices drive shares higher.” $2.7 billion in deals have already been announced or completed year to date—compared to a total of $10.5 billion in 2014.

Private equity firms (the “smart money”) are circling the mining industry for great deals. GDX, the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF, currently has an aggregate price to book ratio of 1.06, while its little brother, the Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ), trades at 76% of book value.

A stronger US dollar and falling oil prices are presenting two deflationary forces that are good for gold. The last two times oil dropped more than 50% in one year—1986 and 2008—gold rallied over 25% the following year.

Here's our video primer for this weeks event "Are you Going to Buy Low and Sell High this Time Around"

Investors are waking up to the fact that gold is rallying. Among the top 10 non leveraged ETFs are five gold miners ETFs. As of early February, investors had already poured $885.4 million in new assets into GDX—one of the best results among sector ETFs—and GDXJ attracted nearly $226 million.

No one can say for sure if this is the beginning of the next gold bull market. However, what is clear is that once the bull market does get started, the best of the best gold stocks will go vertical.

Successful gold producers may go up 150-200%. But the top ranked junior miners—the companies with quality management and great assets will take a moonshot. 500%, 1,000%, and more is not out of the question.

Casey Research’s free online event GOING VERTICAL aims to help investors understand where we are in the gold cycle, what to expect, and how to prepare their portfolio so they have a real shot at the jackpot when gold rises again.

Just Click Here to Reserve Your Spot

Eight industry stars discuss the most pressing issues of the day......

Pierre Lassonde, cofounder and chairman of Franco-Nevada
Rick Rule, founder and chairman of Sprott Global Resource Investments
Ron Netolitzky, chairman and director of Aben Resources
Doug Casey, chairman of Casey Research
Frank Holmes, CEO and CIO of U.S. Global Investors
Bob Quartermain, president, CEO, and director of Pretium Resources
and Casey Research precious metals experts Louis James and Jeff Clark.

Topics they will talk about in GOING VERTICAL include: 2015 outlook on the gold market; up, down, or sideways?—What to expect from gold’s next leg up, and how even stocks that have dropped 75% or more can come back with a vengeance—How to make money on junior miners even in the midst of a downturn—Which country may end up controlling the price of gold and what that means for investors—4 signs that a bear market is turning into a bull market—Which types of companies institutional investors will flock to first when gold goes up, and how to “front run” them—3 reasons why the best gold producers might double when the gold sector recovers—and much more.

Also, some of the experts talk about their favorite gold and silver companies, naming names—and Louis James reveals one of his favorite junior mining stock with vertical potential.

Register now to watch the event on Tuesday, March 10, 2:00 p.m. EDT. Even if you know you can’t make it at that time, register anyway that way you’ll get an email with a link to the video recording after the event and can watch it at your leisure.

Click Here to Learn More and Register

See you on Tuesday,
Ray's Stock World


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Blood in the Streets to Create the Opportunity of the Decade

By Laurynas Vegys, Research Analyst

Gold stocks staged spring and summer rallies this year, but haven’t able to sustain the momentum. Many have sold off sharply in recent weeks, along with gold. That makes this a good time to examine the book value of gold equities; are they objectively cheap now, or not?

By way of reminder, a price to book value ratio (P/BV) shows the stock price in relation to the company’s book value, which is the theoretical value of a company’s assets minus liabilities. A stock is considered cheap when it’s trading at a historically low P/BV, and undervalued when it’s trading below book value.

From the perspective of an investor, low price to book multiples imply opportunity and a margin of safety from potential declines in price.

We analyzed the book values of all publicly traded primary gold producers with a market cap of $1 billion or more. The final list comprised 32 companies. We then charted book values from January 2, 2007 through last Thursday, October 15. Here’s what we found.

At the current 1.20 times book value, gold stocks aren’t as cheap as they were when we ran the numbers in June, 2013, successfully pinpointing the all-time low of 0.91 (the turning point before the period in gray). Of course, that P/BV is hard to beat: it was one of the lowest values ever. And while the stocks not quite as cheap now, the valuation multiple still lingers close to its historical bottom. Remember, we’re talking about senior mining companies here—producers with real assets and cash flow selling for close to their book values.

In short, yes, gold stocks are objectively selling cheaply.

The juniors, of course, have been hit harder. It’s hard to put a meaningful book value on many of these “burning matches” with little more than hopes and geologists’ dreams, but valuations on many are scraping the bottom, making them even better bargains, albeit substantially riskier ones.

What does this mean for us investors?

It’s no surprise to see that every contraction in the ratio was followed by a major rally. In other words, the cure for low prices is low prices:

• The August, 2007 bottom (2.2) and the momentary downtrend that preceded it were quickly erased by a swift price rally leading to a January, 2008 peak (3.8).

• The bull also made a comeback in 2009-2010, fighting its way up out of what seemed at the time to be the deepest hole (1.04) in October, 2008.

Stocks have been on a long slide since the ratio last peaked at 3.24 in October, 2010, with the downturn in 2013 pushing multiples to previously unseen lows.

No one—us included—has a crystal ball, and so it’s impossible to tell if the bottom is behind us. We can, however, gauge with certainty when an asset is cheap—and cash-generating companies selling for little more than book value are extraordinary values for big-picture investors.

Now let’s see how these valuations look against the S&P 500.

Stocks listed in the S&P500 are currently more than twice as expensive as the gold producers. That’s not surprising given how volatile metals prices can be and how unloved mining is—but is it rational? Note that despite the downtrend in the last month, the multiple for the S&P500 remains close to a multiyear high.

In other words, yes, the S&P 500 is expensive.

This contrast points to an obvious opportunity in our sector.

So is now the time to buy gold stocks? Answer: our stocks are good values now, and, if there is a larger correction ahead, they may well become fantastic values, briefly. Either way, value is value, on sale.

As the most successful resource speculators have repeatedly said: you have to be a contrarian in this sector to be successful, buying low and selling high, and that takes courage based on solid convictions. Yes, it’s possible that valuations could fall further. However:

The difference between prices and clear-cut value argue for going long and staying that way until multiples return to lofty levels again—which they’ve done every time, as the historical record shows.

With a long term time frame in mind, whatever happens in the short term is less of a concern. Building substantial positions at good prices in great companies in advance of what must transpire sooner or later is what successful speculation is all about. This is how Doug Casey, Rick Rule, and others have made their fortunes, and it’s why they’re buying in the market now, seeing market capitulation as one of the prime opportunities of the decade.

That’s worth remembering, especially during a downturn that has even die hard gold bugs giving up.
Bottom line: “Blood in the streets” isn't pretty, but it’s a good thing for those with the liquidity and courage to act.

What to buy? That’s what we cover in BIG GOLD. Thanks to our 3 month full money back guarantee, you have nothing to lose and the potential for gains that only a true contrarian can expect.

The article Blood in the Streets to Create the Opportunity of the Decade was originally published at casey research

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The Only PGM Stock You Should Buy

By Jeff Clark, Senior Precious Metals Analyst

It’s quite the dilemma.

One of the major reasons my colleagues and I are so bullish on platinum group metals (PGM)—palladium, in particular—is because of the intractable problems with supply. But most of the producers are backed into corners, with few options for improving their outlook. There’s simply no way for these metals to avoid a long-term production deficit due to the deep seated problems with the companies that produce them.

So, how to invest?

Since we’re talking about profiting from a metals bull market, we could just buy bullion—and we have indeed recommended doing so to our readers. But to really maximize your leverage to the upside (and avoid more risky futures and options), a stock in a company that produces the metal is normally the way to go. Unfortunately, as above, the pickings are slim.

For us to invest in a PGM producer, the company would have to be:

• Outside of South Africa and Russia. The problems with miners in both countries are numerous and difficult.

• Making money. Many producers are not profitable at current prices because production costs are so high. And they won’t come down just because the strikes ended—they’ll go up, due to higher wages.

• Have a strong growth profile. We want a company that can capitalize on burgeoning demand, which would add further leverage to our investment.

• Have strong management (of course!). The last thing we want is a team with no experience navigating a volatile market such as this.

Does such a stock exist?

It’s a tall order, but the answer is yes. The company we recommend in this area meets all the criteria above—and is the safest speculation in this space. We consider it so safe, in fact, that we just “graduated” it from the International Speculator to BIG GOLD.

How’s This for Leverage?

 

This profitable mid-tier producer is perfectly positioned: it’s not so small that we’re purely speculating on some uncertain game changing event, and yet it’s small enough to generate much larger share price gains than would be possible for one of the major mining companies. On the other hand, it’s big enough to catch the attention of mainstream investors.

Here are seven reasons why we’re excited about this company and the leverage we think we’ll get by owning shares…...

#1: Large, High-Grade Assets

The company has two distinct but closely related mine sites. These alone will support the company’s growth for many years. However, only nine miles of an estimated 28 miles of known mineralization has been developed between them—essentially one third of one giant mineralized structure. Management thinks it has an additional 102 million tonnes of undeveloped resources waiting to be dug up.

And get this: the average grade of their proven and probable reserves is 0.45 ounces per tonne, the world’s highest grade PGM deposit. Of these, 78% is palladium, a very attractive figure since we’re even more bullish on it than platinum. At the right metals prices, this company could double or triple production and still maintain a very long mine life.

#2: Growing Production and Low Costs

The company grew 2013 production by 10,000 ounces, but has yet to use all its milling capacity. It currently uses about 3,600 tonnes per day (tpd) of its 6,000 tpd total capacity. The company is working to increase ore production this year, which is good timing for us.

With a much cleaner balance sheet and a forecast of $800-$850 per ounce for all-in sustaining costs (AISC) in 2014, the company looks poised to make money in the current price environment—and a lot of money in the supply squeeze we anticipate.

#3: Recycling Business

In addition to mining, this company recycles depleted catalyst materials to recover palladium, platinum, and rhodium at its smelter and base metal refinery. It’s been doing this since 1997, and business is booming. Pre-tax earnings last year rose a whopping 233% over 2012. And management says it will expand this end of their business over the next few years.

#4: Strong Financial Performance

This company reported over a billion dollars of revenue last year, up nearly 30% from 2012. It finished the year with a very strong working capital position of almost a half billion dollars.

#5: Unique North American Operations

The company is one of only a few PGM producers in North America. Nearly all other PGM mines operate in South Africa (Impala, Amplats, Lonmin, etc.) or Russia (Norilsk). Therefore, this company is more stable than most that mine in other jurisdictions.

#6: Upgraded Management

A prior management team made a poor investment in Argentina a few years back, which led to major changes in the board of directors and top management last year. The new president and CEO is a 21-year industry veteran and has experience in both M&A and mine optimization. He’s already corrected past mistakes, and we’re happy with the direction he’s taken the company. The technical people on the ground seem competent and are getting admirable results.

And finally…...

#7: We’ve Been There!

Our Chief Metals Investment Strategist Louis James, who conducted a due diligence trip to the company’s operations last year, says:

I liked the story when I visited and considered it to be the company to buy in a safe mining jurisdiction. But I didn’t want to bet on the team in place at the time. Flash forward and now it’s under new management, which is very focused on cutting costs and expanding the core business. The company’s results for 2013 were quite impressive, and I expect them to get better going forward. I’m convinced this company is uniquely positioned to benefit from potential supply shortages. Coupled with a likely rise in demand from the global auto industry in the years ahead, this stock is a very attractive play.

Here’s a picture from his visit.

Pay dirt: this is what the company’s palladium-platinum mineralization looks like before blasting. You can see the closely spaced holes that will be blasted a fraction of a second before the surrounding ones—in successive waves—so the ore is blasted inward. This high-grade resource in a safe and stable jurisdiction is the heart of our speculation.

 

The Only Stock to Buy, in a Market Backed into a Corner

 

Johnson Matthey, the world’s leading authority on PGMs, estimates the platinum market will register a deficit of at least 1.2 million ounces this year. This would be the largest shortfall since it first compiled data in 1975.

While it will take an enormous amount of time and expense to recover from the strikes in South Africa, that’s only the first layer of problems for the industry:

• According to consultancy GFMS, 300,000 ounces of platinum and 165,000 ounces of palladium could be lost after the strikes end, as it will take time and money to ramp up to full capacity—if that’s even possible since some mines have been damaged. The Implats CEO said it will take his company at least three months to return to full production, and they’ve already put the development of three new replacement shafts in the Rustenburg area on hold. Anglo American announced just last week that it plans to sell its platinum operations.

• Holdings of physically backed palladium ETFs continue to hit record highs. In less than two months, a half million ounces were added to ETFs. Fund holdings will likely continue to climb and push the palladium market further into deficit.

• The Russian government has been reportedly buying palladium from local producers, since it appears its stockpiles are near exhaustion. Exports ticked higher last month, but that was likely in anticipation of potential sanctions.

• Some recyclers announced they are holding back on sales, as they believe prices will move higher.

• Platinum demand in India is expected to grow 35% this year.

• Reports have surfaced that tout replacements to platinum and/or palladium. However, these are mostly research projects and are at least two to three years away from commercial viability (some will never make it).

• Auto sales in the US, China, and Europe, the three biggest regions by consumption, were up 12% through May over 2013.

• Existing stockpiles of these metals have dwindled. Based on prior estimates from Citigroup, only nine weeks of palladium and 22 weeks of platinum supplies remain—and half of those are in Russia. Standard Bank projects that stockpiled material from South African producers will run out in a month or less.

The key point is that platinum and palladium supply is in a structural deficit. Prices will pull back now that the strikes have ended—and that is your opportunity. The bull market in these metals is really just getting underway.

And we have the primo pick in the space. The shares of this stock would have to climb 50% just to match its 2011 highs—and that’s without the platinum/palladium supply crunch we’re speculating on. As you’ve surmised by now, I can’t give away the name of this stock in fairness to paid subscribers. But you can get it by giving BIG GOLD a risk free try. You’ll receive our full analysis and specific buy guidance, along with an exclusive discount on a popular gold coin in the June issue. And, if you want the absolute safest way to invest in PGMs, check out the options recommended in the May issue.

If you’re not 100% satisfied with the newsletter, simply cancel during the 3-month trial period for a full refund—no questions asked. Whatever you do, though, don’t miss out on the best stock pick in the PGM bull market. Click Here to learn more about BIG GOLD or Click Here to go straight to the order form.

The article The Only PGM Stock You Should Buy was originally published at Casey Research

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Gold Forecast – This Is Going To Be Exciting

Gold Forecast: During the past year there has been very little talk about gold, silver or gold stocks in the media. Yet the year before it was all the media could talk about and they even had the price of gold streaming live all day in the corner of the TV monitor.

I am always amazed how the masses and media can be so off in their timing of the stock market and commodities in general. For example when Greece was having issues in 2012 and everyone was avoiding investments in that country like it was the plague. Looking back now, Greece is up huge and only recently investors are confident enough to put money into the Greek stock market again.

But the truth is that big move has already happend, and the US and global markets are in rotation (changing trends). Money is slowly shifting from what has been hot during the past year or two, to new investments which have a lot more room to rise in value. And this is leads us back to my gold forecast.

If you are at all familiar with Stan Weinstein’s work, then you understand the four market stages. If not, you can learn these four stages on my Stan Weinstein page. Through stage analysis we can predict the type of price action we should expected and have a rough idea just how long a move (new trend) is likely to last. It is important to know that Stan Weinstein’s stage analysis works on any time frame from a one minute chart to a monthly chart. If you do not know this then you are trading almost blind without a doubt.

Current stage analysis looks as though the US stock market may be starting to form a stage three top. There are several indicators and market behaviors which are screaming, telling us to trade with caution to the long side. But the masses do not see this or hear what is unfolding in front of their very own eyes, and that I fine. It actually reminds me of a funny old movie called “hear no evil, see no evil”.

In short, the market is showing some signs of distribution selling in stocks, and the once market leaders are now getting completely crushed with heavy selling volume like the biotech stocks, social media stocks and other momentum stocks and this is bad.

Gold on the other had has been forming a stage one basing pattern. This provides a very bullish long term gold forecast that investors could ride for several years.

-----------------------

Q: Where Will Investment Capital Go During The Next Bear Market In stocks?

 

A: One of the places will be precious metals. Click here for my gold forecast which shows the main reason why

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Gold Forecast Coles Notes:

 

1. The U.S. dollar index has setup a massive stage 3 topping pattern on the weekly chart. A falling dollar will send the price of gold higher naturally.

2. Bullish gold forecasts by the media have dropped substantially, meaning everyone is bearish on gold.

3. Gold stocks are already showing signs of massive accumulation. I always use the price and volume action of gold stocks to help create and time my gold forecasts which it starting to look bullish.

Gold Forecast Conclusion:

 

Gold market traders should understand that precious metals in general are still months away from breaking out to the upside and starting a new bull market. Do not be in a rush to buy gold or gold stocks yet. There will be plenty of time folks.

See you in the markets!
Chris Vermeulen 

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Doug Casey’s Coming Super Bubble

By Louis James, Chief Metals & Mining Investment Strategist

In many of my conversations with legendary speculator Doug Casey since the crash of 2008, Doug has talked about a coming super bubble.

Everything Doug has studied about human nature, history, and economics—from Roman times right up to the present—has him absolutely convinced that the global economy is headed for high inflation, with a very real potential for hyperinflation in the US.

Ben Bernanke's panicked deployment of squadrons of cash-laden choppers has been emulated around the world. The Bank of International Settlements estimates that global debt markets now exceed $100 trillion.
The laws of economics—maybe even physics—say that this inflation, whenever it arrives, must have consequences… and that those consequences cannot be avoided forever.

The easiest consequence to predict, and the one we're betting heavily on, is that the price of gold will move higher. Much higher. That move will in turn ignite a bubble in gold stocks and, as Doug likes to say, a super-bubble in junior gold stocks.

Jeff Clark, editor of our BIG GOLD newsletter, recently illustrated what such a super-bubble can look like, citing figures from several historic bull markets. I hesitate to repeat any of his figures because the right junior stocks' gains when the market goes bubbly are, frankly, hard to believe. However, it is a fact that quite a few junior stocks achieved the much vaunted 10 bagger status (1,000% gains) in previous bubbles, and some even returned 100 fold.

Here’s the essential reason why junior mining stocks are Doug's favorite speculations.

Let's start at the beginning: Doug's mantra is that one should buy gold for prudence and gold stocks for profit. These are very different kinds of asset deployment.

It's particularly important not to think of gold as an investment, but as wealth protection. It's the only highly liquid financial asset that is not simultaneously someone else's liability. Every ounce of gold you physically possess is value in solid form—there is no short to your long. Come hell or high water, it is value you can liquidate and use to secure your needs. That's why gold is for prudence.

Gold stocks are for speculation because they offer leverage to gold. This is actually true of all mining stocks and, more broadly, of stocks in commodity-related companies; they all tend to magnify the price movements in the underlying commodity. But the phenomenon is especially strong in the highly volatile precious metals.

Allow me to illustrate—and in an effort to avoid seeming overly promotional, I'll show how gold stocks' leverage works on the downside as well as the upside. Bad news first: here's a chart showing how gold retreated during October and November of 2008, the worst two months of that year's crash for mining stocks. Also shown are an index of gold juniors and our own portfolio performance. This was, of course, a terrific time to buy, resulting in spectacular gains over the next two years.




Now the good news: here's a chart showing the performance of the same three things in January and February of this year, which saw a major rally in the gold sector.

Here's one more, with a particularly telling point to make. This is the stock price of ATAC Resources (ATC.V) over the same time period as the chart above. The point I want to draw your attention to is that the company had no major news during the time period shown. It's a Yukon gold play, buried deep under the famous snows of the Great White North, so there's no exploration under way, and there won't be until the snow melts weeks or months from now.

This third chart shows in one simple yet powerful way exactly why Doug loves buying these stocks when they're on sale and selling them when they go into bubble mode. ATAC essentially did nothing and still shot up over an order of magnitude more than gold. Note that while this third chart looks like the second, the scales are quite different. (ATAC, by the way, is part of my special report, 10 Bagger List for 2014, that details nine companies I believe could show 1,000% or more returns this year. Note that the report was written before the big move upward you see in the chart above.)

It's worth emphasizing that ATAC's performance this year is just on a rebound from recent lows—imagine what a stock like this could do when Doug's super-bubble for gold stocks arrives.

But what if it doesn't? Or worse—what if we already missed it?

I remember a conversation with Doug back in 2011, when gold rose to within reach of $2,000 per ounce. Many mainstream analysts said gold was in a bubble. I told Doug I couldn't understand why anyone would listen to analysts who've called the gold trend wrong every year since the current bull cycle started. I remember Doug chuckling and saying: "Just wait and see—this is barely an overture."

I am certain Doug is right. That's not because he's the guru, nor because I'm a nutty gold bug, but because no government in history has ever multiplied its currency base without sparking serious and often fatal inflation. That's a fact, not an opinion, backed by enough data to make me extremely confident in predicting what lies ahead for the US dollar, even if I can't say exactly when we'll reach the tipping point.

Since that 2011 interim peak, as we all know painfully well, gold has backed off on par with the correction in the middle of the great 1970s gold bull market. But economic realities require that the market turn around and head for his long predicted super bubble in junior mining stocks before too long. That makes the correction the last, best time to build a substantial position in the stocks best positioned to profit from the coming bubble.

And now Doug is saying that he believes the upturn is at hand. He expects a steadily rising market for a year or two, perhaps more, but not many more, culminating in a market mania for the record books.

Our market does appear to have bottomed. It may take a while to go into its mania phase, but it's already heating up. No one is going to want to be short when this train leaves the station—and the conductor has blown the whistle.

To find out what you could be missing if you don’t invest in junior mining stocks right now, watch Casey Research’s recent video event, Upturn Millionaires—How to Play the Turning Tides in the Precious Metals Market. With resource and investment experts Doug Casey, Frank Giustra, Rick Rule, Porter Stansberry, Ross Beaty, John Mauldin, Marin Katusa, and myself. Watch it here for free, or click here to find out more about my 10 Bagger List for 2014.

The article Doug Casey’s Coming Super Bubble was originally published at Casey Research

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Doug Casey: “There’s Going to be a Bubble in Gold Stocks”

By Doug Casey

The following video is an excerpt from "Upturn Millionaires—How to Play the Turning Tides in the Precious Metals Market." In it, natural resource legends Doug Casey and Rick Rule discuss the deeply undervalued junior mining sector and the rare opportunity for spectacular returns it offers investors right now.

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Discover for yourself how to make life changing gains in the new bull run in junior mining stocks. They still trade at deep discounts, but not for much longer.


To learn more, watch the full "Upturn Millionaires" video here.




This may be your last time to catch the replay...."Being the Architect of the Big Trade"

Is this a turning point for the Junior Gold Stocks?

By Doug Hornig, Senior Editor

 

It's not exactly news that gold mining stocks have been in a slump for more than two years. Many investors who owned them have thrown in the towel by now, or are holding simply because a paper loss isn't a realized loss until you sell.


For contrarian speculators like Doug Casey and Rick Rule, though, it's the best of all scenarios. "Buy when blood is in the streets," investor Nathan Rothschild allegedly said. And buy they do, with both hands—because, they assert, there are definitive signs that things may be turning around.

So what's the deal with junior mining stocks, and who should invest in them? I'll give you several good reasons not to touch them with a 10 foot pole… and one why you maybe should.

First, you need to understand that junior gold miners are not buy-and-forget stocks. They are the most volatile securities in the world—"burning matches," as Doug calls them. To speculate in those stocks requires nerves of steel.

Let's take a look at the performance of the juniors since 2011. The ETF that tracks a basket of such stocks—Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners (GDXJ)—took a savage beating. In early April of 2011, a share would have cost you $170. Today, you can pick one up for about $36… that's a decline of nearly 80%.

There are something like 3,000 small mining companies in the world today, and the vast majority of them are worthless, sitting on a few hundred acres of moose pasture and a pipe dream.

It's a very tough business. Small-cap exploration companies (the "juniors") are working year round looking for viable deposits. The question is not just if the gold is there, but if it can be extracted economically, and the probability is low. Even the ones that manage to find the goods and build a mine aren't in the clear yet: before they can pour the first bar, there are regulatory hurdles, rising costs of labor and machinery, and often vehement opposition from natives to deal with.

As the performance of junior mining stocks is closely correlated to that of gold, when the physical metal goes into a tailspin, gold mining shares follow suit. Only they tend to drop off faster and more deeply than physical gold.

Then why invest in them at all?

Because, as Casey Chief Metals & Mining Strategist Louis James likes to say, the downside is limited—all you can lose is 100% of your investment. The upside, on the other hand, is infinite.
In the rebound periods after downturns such as the one we're in, literal fortunes can be made; gains of 400-1,000% (and sometimes more) are not a rarity. It's a speculator's dream.

When speculating in junior miners, timing is crucial. Bear runs in the gold sector can last a long time—some of them will go on until the last faint hearted investor has been flushed away and there's no one left to sell.
At that point they come roaring back. It happened in the late '70s, it happened several times in the '80s when gold itself pretty much went to sleep, and again in 2002 after a four year retreat.

The most recent rally of 2009-'10 was breathtaking: Louis' International Speculator stocks, which had gotten hammered with the rest of the market, handed subscribers average gains of 401.8%—a level of return Joe the Investor never gets to see in his lifetime.

So where are we now in the cycle?

The present downturn, as noted, kicked off in the spring of 2011, and despite several "mini rallies", the overall trend has been down. Recently, though, the natural resource experts here at Casey Research and elsewhere have seen clear signs of an imminent turnaround.

For one thing, the price of gold itself has stabilized. After hitting its peak of $1,921.50 in September of 2011, it fell back below $1,190 twice last December. Since then, it hasn't tested those lows again and is trading about 6.5% higher today.

The demand for physical gold, especially from China, has been insatiable. The Austrian mint had to hire more employees and add a third eight-hour shift to the day in an attempt to keep up in its production of Philharmonic coins. "The market is very busy," a mint spokesperson said. "We can't meet the demand, even if we work overtime." Sales jumped 36% in 2013, compared to the year before.

Finally, the junior mining stocks have perked up again. In fact, for the first month of 2014, they turned in the best performance of any asset, as you can see here:

(Source: Zero Hedge)

The writing's on the wall, say the pros, that the downturn won't last much longer—and when the junior miners start taking off again, there's no telling how high they could go.

To present the evidence and to discuss how to play the turning tides in the precious metals market, Casey Research is hosting a timely online video event titled Upturn Millionaires next Wednesday, February 5, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern.



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Time to Buy Out of Favor ETF’s for 2014?

From our trading partner David A. Banister of Active Trading Partners.....

The best time to buy cheap is when you are afraid to bring up your ideas around the water cooler at work for fear of the peer laughter. Our work centers on looking for oversold conditions and crowd behavioral anomalies that can give us better low risk entries with good upside potential. A combination of fundamentals and technical, combined with Elliott Wave Theory patterns can lead to nice profits with low risk.

For just a few quick ideas that would make sense in this area, we point out 3 ETF’s that you could look at entering now as they are way out of favor and very oversold.

Gold Stocks: GDXJ The Junior Miners index is high risk, high reward. However, if you time the entry right at the opportune moment the upside is very high with low downside risk. With GOLD out of favor, we have been pounding the table the last 10 days or so that there are only 4-5 weeks left to buy quality miner names. Instead of picking through them one at a time, you can pick up the high beta play GDJX ETF.




How about Brazil? Everyone hates Brazil stocks now, but they have some of the most valuable natural resources in the world, and Brazil almost always bounces back strong off bear cycle lows. Here is a way to play the commodity rebound we see in 2014: EWZ ETF




It’s not too late to eat some Turkey: The country TURKEY also often is a very volatile play to invest, but going in during very oversold conditions often plays out to the upside for gains later on. ETF TUR is beat up, it’s time to buy.




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Bear Market Cycle Bottom Forming in Gold and Gold Stocks Right Now!

Today our trading partner David Banister takes a look at the Bullish Percent Index chart relative to Gold’s cycle and Gold Stocks.

Essentially it tells you what percentage of Gold sector stocks are at or above a moving average, which normally would be 50 days. When 70% or more are above a 50 day moving average, sectors can be peaking out. If you look at our chart at the bottom, we have labeled various incidents with A, B, C, and D.

A. The precious metal as we all know peaked in the fall of 2011 at $1923 per ounce, and the Bullish percent index was at 80%! Usually at 30% or so, they are bottoming out in most cases.

B. We saw a rare case in the summer of 2013 where the Bullish percent index for Gold stocks was at 0%, yes that is not a miss-print.

C. Gold bottomed at 1181 in late June 2013, and then rallied up to 1434 and we saw Gold stocks rally 40-80% in individual cases and the Bullish percent index rallied up to 55%.

D. If we fast forward to December 2013, we have Gold pulling back in the final 5th wave down from the Bull cycle highs in August 2011 at $1923. The Bullish percent index is back to 10% and heading towards 0 or close once again. At the same time, the Gold miners index ETF (GDX) is at 5 year lows and even lower than June-July 2013 lows.

These types of indicators are coming to a pivot point where Gold is testing the summer 1181 lows and may go a bit lower to the 1090 ranges. At the same time, we see bottoming 5th wave patterns combining with public sentiment, bullish percent indexes, and 5 year lows in Gold stocks. This is how bottom in Bear cycles form and you are witnessing the makings of a huge bottom between now and early February 2014 if we are right.

The time to buy Gold and Gold stocks is now during the next 4 - 5 weeks just as we were recommending stocks in late February 2009 with public articles that nobody paid attention to. This is the time to start accumulating quality gold miner and also the precious metals themselves as the bear cycle winds down and the spring comes back to Gold and Silver in 2014.

Click here to join us at Market Trend Forecast for regular updates on Gold, Silver, and The SP 500 Index.

What NOT to Do When Investing in Miners

By Eric Angeli, Investment Executive, Sprott Global Resource Investments

 

Precious metals miners are the most volatile stocks on earth. They're so volatile that investors often forget that underneath those whipsawing stock prices lie real businesses. But even many of those who consider themselves old pros in natural resource investing tend to get one thing wrong. Eric Angeli, an investment executive with Sprott Global Resources and protégé of legendary resource broker Rick Rule, explains how not to fall into the "top down" trap…



If the past two years have taught us anything, it's that trying to predict short term moves in the gold price can be a road to ruin. Parsing the umpteen countervailing forces that combine to set the price of gold is tough. And it's even tougher when you consider that oftentimes, market moving news, such as a central bank trade, isn't reported until after the fact.

In my years spent evaluating natural resource companies as a broker and analyst, I’ve found that there are two ways to successfully invest in precious metals equities. Doing it right can bolster the strength of your portfolio, not to mention your own confidence in your holdings.

Method #1—Top-Down Approach

 

You may have heard this method referred to as “Directional Investing.”
A directional investor decides that gold prices will increase in the long run. That's the starting point of his thesis. He then proceeds to find the companies that will be successful if his prediction comes true. He looks for companies with leverage to the gold price.

If an investor can get the timing right, this can be a lucrative strategy. There is an obvious caveat, though: for this strategy to work, precious metals prices must rise.

In my role as a broker, I deal with both companies and investors all day long. I can tell you that most speculators involved with gold equities use this top down approach.

That's why the number one question I’ve heard over the last three months has been, “Why isn’t gold moving up?” To directional investors, the answer to this question is paramount.

This mindset leads to the herd mentality and, frankly, gives us our best bull markets.
I prefer method #2.

Method #2—Fundamental Approach

 

Fundamental investors ignore prognostications about where gold prices might move next. We eliminate gold price movements as the crux of our investment decisions, which removes a lot of the guesswork from our portfolios. For a fundamental investor, gold prices are still a piece of the puzzle, but they are not the only driver.

Fundamental investors want to know: which company has a promising deposit in a relatively safe jurisdiction? Which has a tight share structure? This “bottom up” method, however, does require a lot more homework.
Fundamental investing is all about identifying the difference between a stock’s intrinsic value and the price at which it is trading at in the open market.

While I do believe in higher gold prices eventually, and inevitably, I know that short-term movements in the price of gold are beyond my control. I instead prefer to position my clients for success in the current environment. Instead of focusing on when the gold price will move, which we can never know, we focus on picking quality companies.

Why Hasn’t the Top-Down Approach Been Working?

 

You might say: because the price of gold hasn’t gone up! That's true, but there’s more to the story.
Until quite recently, gold has continued to rise, though not at the same clip we enjoyed after 2008. The problem is that miners' operating costs rose faster than the price of gold. Investors didn't expect that.
Nor did they factor in other cost increases. Sure, the value of a deposit rises every day the gold price rises. But did oil prices jump at the same time, making trucking the goods out more expensive? Did your laborers start demanding high wages? Did energy costs increase? Did the federal government demand a bigger slice of the pie?

Top down investors can stop trying to figure out why they haven’t been correct over the last several years. They were correct on the gold price, but they ignored underlying cost factors.

The Top 7 Things to Look For

This is where the Fundamental Approach shines. All of your investments should fulfill a few key checkpoints:

1. Look for companies where management owns a large percentage of the stock. A vested interest at a higher share price is even better.
2. Look for a tight capital structure. A bloated outstanding share count is a red flag. As is a history of management carelessly diluting away shareholder interest by issuing new stock.
3. Look for a thrifty management team. A good company should spend their capital on projects, not swanky new offices.
4. The company's mine should remain profitable even if gold drops to $1,000 per ounce. It could happen.
5. Look for companies with enough cash to finance their current drill program, expansion plans, feasibility study, or construction phase. This year in particular, companies are having a very difficult time finding financing. Those who have adequate cash are diamonds in the rough.
6. Know which countries support mining. A tier-one asset under the control of a wildly corrupt government isn't really a tier-one asset. You don't want to get caught in the middle of a government dangling final permits above managements’ heads.
7. Know the geological potential of the exploration area. A four-million-ounce gold deposit is swell, but what if your company discovers not just one gold mine, but an entire new gold district? How will you factor in that upside?

Don't Let Fear Make You Miss Out

 

Mining companies have a fiduciary responsibility to make their shareholders money, so they can’t help but paint a rosy picture for potential investors. That's why you need to have a disciplined and impartial eye. Most companies are not worthy of your hard earned capital.

Having an advisor you trust, or access to technical expertise, is crucial. Ideally you should have both. The most educated investor always has the edge.

I'll conclude with this: the markets have not been kind to the miners recently. But selling a stock just because it dropped in value is an emotional decision. Seeing red on your computer screen is painful, but it is not relevant. What is relevant is what you do with that capital going forward. Don't let emotion cloud your judgment.
 
On the other hand, if you’re waiting for the gold price to move higher before you sell, then you’re a speculator masquerading as an investor, and you may as well buy a ticket to Vegas.

My boss and mentor, Rick Rule, recently said, “Bear markets are the authors of bull markets.” When these markets do start moving, if you’re not positioned with the highest quality tier one companies, you could miss out on one of the biggest bull market moves of your investing life.

Eric Angeli is an investment executive at Sprott Global Resources. 

Read Eric's, and other experts', pertinent investment advice every day in the free e letter, Casey Daily Dispatch. Click here to sign up now.



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Precious Metals: Gold, Silver and Miners Are Trapped

The precious metal market has been stuck in a strong down trend since 2012. But the recent chart, volume and technical analysis is starting to show some signs that a bottom may have already taken place.

This report focused on the weekly and monthly charts which allow us to see the bigger picture of where the precious metals sector stands in terms of its trend. Let’s take a look at a few charts below for a quick overview, but if you want more interesting ...... Click here to Read More.

Gold, Silver & Precious Metal Miners Signals

It has been a very long couple of years for the precious metal bugs. The price of gold, silver and their related mining stocks have bucked the broad market up trend and instead have been sinking to the bottom in terms of performance.

Earlier this week I posted a detailed report on the broad stock market and how it looks as though it‘s uptrend will be coming to an end sooner than later. The good news is that precious metals have the exact flip side of that outlook. They appear to be bottoming as they churn at support zones.

While metals and miners remain in a down trend it is important to recognize and prepare for a reversal in the coming weeks or months. Let’s take a look at the charts for a visual of where price is currently trading along with my analysis overlaid.

Weekly Price of Gold Futures

Gold has been under heavy selling pressure this year and it still may not be over. The technical patterns on the chart show continued weakness down to the $1300USD per once which would cleanse the market of remaining long positions before price rockets towards $1600+ per ounce.

There is a second major support zone drawn on the chart which is a worst case scenario. But this would likely on happen if US equities start another major leg higher and rally through the summer.

Weekly Price of Silver Futures

Silver is a little different than gold in terms of where it stands from a technical analysis point of view. The recent 10% dip in price which shows on the chart as a long lower candle stick wick took place on very light volume. This to me shows the majority of weak positions have been shaken out of silver. Gold has not done this yet and it typically happens before a bottom is put in.

While I figure gold will make one more minor new low, silver I feel will drift sideways to lower during until gold works the bugs out of the chart.

Silver Mining Stock ETF – Weekly Chart

Silver miners are oversold and trading at both horizontal support and its down support trendline. Volume remains light meaning traders and investors are not that interested in them down where and it should just be a matter of time (weeks/months) before they build a basing pattern and start to rally.

Gold Mining Stock ETF – Weekly Chart

Gold mining stocks continue to be sold by investors with volume rising and price falls. Fear remains in control but that may not last much longer.

Gold Junior Mining Stock ETF – Weekly Chart

Gold junior miners are in the same boat with the big boys. Overall gold and gold miners are still being sold while silver and silver stocks are firming up.

Precious Metals Trading Conclusion

In the coming weeks we should see the broad stock market top out and for gold miners along with precious metals bottom. There are some decent gains to be had in this sector for the second half of the year but it will remain very dicey at best.

If selling in the broad market becomes intense and triggers a full blown bear market money will be pulled out of most investments as cash is king. Gold is likely to hold up the best in terms of percentage points but mining stocks will get sucked down along with all other stocks for a period of time. This scenario is not likely to be of any issue for a few months yet but it’s something to remember.

Chris Vermeulen


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