In addition to the XAU:gold ratio, various other technical and fundamental indicators suggest to me that gold stocks are yet to make their final bottom for 2007:
1. The commitment of traders in the US dollar (see
http://www.cftc.gov/) shows that the commercials are very heavily net long the US dollar: long 16,918 contracts and short only 2400 contracts, about a 7:1 ratio. This setup usually precedes a sharp rally in the US dollar, which would be expected since the US dollar has rallied strongly at the beginning of every global economic slowdown since the early 1970s - and since as Marcus Padley acknowledged on Lateline Tuesday night, there is nearly a total bearish consensus among analysts on the US dollar.
2. The latest commitment of traders in gold shows the commercials net short 124,000 contracts, which means that industry insiders are too bearish in the short term. At the 2001, 2003 and 2005 major bottoms the commercials were always short less than 50,000 contracts (and at major bottoms in prior years the commercials were typically substantially net long). So the gold COT strongly suggests that the major bottom for 2007 gold is not yet in.
3. Insider share purchases in the gold sector, a typical feature of major bottoms, have been very sparse even around the middle of August, and in fact last week there were a number of insider sales including at Royal Gold (RGLD) and US Gold (UXG).
4. Many segments of the corporate debt market are still frozen. If crunch time comes it will be no different to any previous time - money will first flow into US dollars, due to the need to get liquid - not into gold, at first.
5. The US bond market is forecasting a serious economic slowdown, with the two-year treasury yield continuing to fall sharply – so far 220 basis points in 3 months.
6. Silver is not confirming gold: silver technicals are weak.
7. Gold is short-term overbought on just about every technical indicator there is, having rallied from $642 to $712 in less than a month. From a technical standpoint a sharp correction and even sharper sell-off in the gold stocks would not be surprising, causing the XAU:gold ratio to again retest 0.19 (it is currently 0.217).
To re-iterate - 50% of my portfolio is currently in gold stocks. The XAU:gold ratio suggests that substantial gains are ahead in the coming year or so for gold stocks - I don’t want to discourage anyone from buying. But to my mind the above is enough evidence that a better buying opportunity will soon be available to wait before buying more. If the XAU:gold ratio retests the 0.19 level in the coming month I will deploy my remaining cash in gold stocks.
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Disclosure:
I hold LGL, RSG, OGD, SGX on the ASX
And AUY, GG, SSRI on the US exchange
And looking to buy:
ASX: more of the above + NEM, SBM, NCM
NYSE: SLW, MFN, RGLD, SIL
TSX: DMM.TO, NGG.V (the McNeils' other company - New Guinea Gold)
and others