The Death of Equities Redux

Monday, July 30th, 2012

by Patrick Rudden, AllianceBernstein

A famous Business Week article, “The Death of Equities,” concluded, “Today, the old attitude of buying solid stocks as a cornerstone for one’s life savings and retirement has simply disappeared.” Sound familiar? The article was published in August 1979.

The Business Week article discusses how, with “stocks averaging a return of less than 3% throughout the decade,” investors were fleeing equities in favor of cash and real assets such as property, gold and silver. “Further,” it states, “this ‘death of equity’ can no longer be seen as something a stock market rally—however strong—will check. It has persisted for more than 10 years through market rallies, business cycles, recession, recoveries and booms….For better or worse, then, the US economy probably has to regard the death of equities as near-permanent condition.”

The primary economic problem back then was high inflation, which had devastated returns for  stocks and bonds but had greatly buoyed the value of real assets such as gold. Of course, Paul Volcker, then Chairman of the Federal Reserve, was soon to unleash his war on inflation, which set the stage for a prolonged period of strong equity and bond market returns.

But the article says other factors contributed to the death of equities: “The institutionalization of inflation—along with structural changes in communications and psychology—has killed the U.S. equity market for millions of investors. We are all thinking shorter term than our fathers and our grandfathers.”

Inflation (at least of the consumer-price variety) has not been the problem it was in the 1970s, but I would argue that structural changes in communications and psychology have been, if anything, more severe. We are all subject sooner and sooner to more and more information. And, as a consequence, we are thinking shorter term than our fathers and grandfathers and, I should add, mothers and grandmothers.

Equities are no more likely to be dead now than they were in August 1979. Indeed, the expected return advantage of stocks versus government bonds is unusually high at present, in our opinion. However, shorter-time horizons may require us to revisit our investment portfolios. In addition to longer-horizon strategies like value and growth, investors may need to consider shorter-horizon strategies, such as equity income or low-volatility stocks.

Finally, for those investors worried about the return of the inflation bogeyman, holding some exposure to real assets is a good insurance policy.

The views expressed herein do not constitute research, investment advice or trade recommendations and do not necessarily represent the views of all AllianceBernstein portfolio-management teams.

Patrick Rudden is Head of Blend Strategies at AllianceBernstein.

Copyright © AllianceBernstein

Tags: Bond Market, Booms, Business Cycles, Business Week Article, Chairman Of The Federal Reserve, Economic Problem, Federal Reserve, Gold And Silver, Grandfathers, Grandmothers, inflation, Institutionalization, Market Rally, Paul Volcker, Prolonged Period, Real Assets, Recession, Rudden, Stock Market, Stocks And Bonds
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Jim Rogers: “Volume Is Not Going To Come Back. We’ve Had A Great 30 Years. That’s Finished!”

Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

 
Jim Rogers is hedging his gold (and silver) positions reflecting that this is normal, following such a tremendous run, and that this is good for the precious metal in the long-run. In his discussion with Maria Bartiromo this afternoon, he notes India’s anti-gold ‘protectionism’ (and its potential balance of payments issues) that are trying to force the hoarding into risky ‘productive’ assets (as others might say). The immutable commodity maven suggests JPMorgan (and its peers) could be behind the drops in the overall commodity complex as the uncertainty of their positions (and liquidation potential to raise cash as bank examiners begin their forensics) becomes more important. He holds the USD, which he hates; has a number of equity shorts; and is most fearful of banks – specifically admitting he is a serial seller of calls on JPMorgan.

His advice, and perhaps Maria should look into it given their ratings recently, is to become a farmer; own farmland; and speculate on agriculture. On the dismal ‘ethical’ state of our leaders and management, the thoughtful Rogers opines, “You can read world history for decades. There are always people doing things wrong. We have not changed our human nature and we will continue to have scandals and problems” and in a follow-up to CNBC’s standard ‘money-on-the-sidelines’ argument he crushes the money-honey’s dreams: “Finance had a great 30 years. That’s finished. Now to advance, we have too many people, too many MBAs, too much leverage and too many governments that don’t like us”. A must-see rebuttal to the ‘normal’ CNBC hopium with more on China’s slowdown, a US recession, Europe and a Greek exit, QE3, and ‘tractors’.

Tags: Balance Of Payments, Bank Examiners, Cnbc, Farmland, Forensics, Gold And Silver, Hoarding, Human Nature, Jim Rogers, Maria Bartiromo, Maven, Money Honey, Precious Metal, productive assets, Protectionism, Qe3, Rebuttal, Sidelines, Slowdown, World History
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Commodity Snapshot (Bespoke)

Thursday, April 5th, 2012

Tags: April, Commodities, Commodity, Copper, Copyright, Corn, Gold, Gold And Silver, Gold Silver, Green Zone, Investment Group, Natural Gas, Orange Juice, Range Charts, Shading, Silver Platinum, Snapshot, Standard Deviations, Trading Ranges, Wheat
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Some Observations On Recent Gold (And Silver) Volatility

Wednesday, March 7th, 2012

Submitted by Jeff Clark of Casey Research

The Face of Volatility

On February 29, gold dropped 4.8% and silver 6.2% (based on London fix prices). That’s quite the fall for one day. We’ve seen prices that have risen that much, too. But as I’m about to show, these ain’t nothin’, baby.

Based on our experience, we’ve been saying for some time that volatility will increase as the markets fight their way to the mania phase of this cycle – and that once there, the gyrations will jump even higher. This call doesn’t exactly require one to go out on a limb; it makes sense since more investors will be crowding in – and volatility was high in the 1979-’80 mania.

First, let’s put last Wednesday’s big plunge in perspective. Here’s a picture of the daily changes in the gold price since 2003, based on London fix prices. (This chart is very busy, but I want to show the bulk of the bull market in one visual.)

(Click on image to enlarge)

A 4.8% decline is one of gold’s bigger one-day movements over the past nine-plus years. But as you can see, there have been a number of days where gold rose or fell more than 5%. And it exceeded 6% on five occasions.

Here are the data for silver.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Last Wednesday’s decline of 6.2% was one of the metal’s bigger one-day movements. However, it’s exceeded 10% on 14 occasions, 15% three times, and rose an incredible 20.06% on September 18, 2008.

You might think this kind of volatility is high – and it’s true. Worse – or better, depending on how you see things – the volatility in the underlying commodity is magnified in the related company stocks. This is why Doug Casey calls mining stocks, especially the juniors, “the most volatile stocks on earth.” But the thing is, metals volatility has been higher in the past, particularly during a mania.

Here’s what I mean.

The following chart documents gold’s daily price changes from 1976 through the end of 1980. Take a look at the jump in volatility in 1979-’80.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Volatility became the norm in 1979 and especially 1980. Fluctuations of 4% or more were not uncommon.

Here’s the same chart for silver. The metal’s volatility during the 1979-’80 period became extreme.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Daily price movements of 6% or more didn’t occur once prior to 1979 – but then they became commonplace.

I wanted to take a closer look at the biggest price fluctuations during this period, so I ferreted out the largest days of volatility for each metal. For gold, I selected daily movements of greater than 5%.

(Click on image to enlarge)

During this five-year period, gold saw fluctuations greater than 5% on 38 days (19 up, 19 down). Not surprisingly, more “up” days occurred leading up to gold’s peak of January 21, 1980, and more down days came after it.

And yes, gold rose an incredible 13.3% on January 3, 1980. As it turned out, that biggest one-day rise was only 18 calendar days away from the very peak of the market. And the biggest decline of 13.2% on January 22, 1980 was the signal that the top was in.

For silver, I used one-day movements of 10% or more, all of which occurred in 1979 and 1980.

(Click on image to enlarge)

The silver price had fluctuations of 10% or more on 34 days (17 up, 17 down). They occurred over a period of only 15 months, an average of more than two per month.

And yes, silver really did rise a whopping 36.5% on September 18, 1979.

So while last Wednesday’s price movements for gold and silver were big, we simply haven’t seen this kind of volatility in our current bull market.

Now let’s have some fun. Let’s say we match the most volatile days from 1979-’80 at some point before the current bull market is over. If we use gold’s biggest up day (13.3%) and biggest down day (13.2%), here’s what would happen to prices from various levels. Remember, these are one-day gains and retreats:

Imagine gold jumping from $1,800 to $2,039.40 in one day!

However, unless you think $1,800 is the level from which the mania starts, it’s more likely we’d see a 13.3% advance (or something similar) from a higher starting point. We’d thus probably see gold jumping to $5,665 from $5,000, for example. And further, that would probably signal we’re near the top.

Keep in mind that volatility worked both ways during the mania, so dropping from $4,000 to $3,472 or something similar is likely to occur as well.

Here’s the same table for silver, with its biggest up day of 36.5% and down day of 18.5%.

Can you imagine silver starting the day at $80 and hitting $109.20 before you go to bed that night? Something like that will probably happen at least once before this bull market is over. As with gold, though, that kind of movement is more likely to take place from a higher level, such as $100 or $125 (or higher?). And a fall like $100 to $81.50 will probably be part of the trend as well.

There are some definite conclusions we can draw from the historical picture:

• First, if history repeats, or even rhymes, our biggest days of volatility are ahead. And they will be normal.
• Second, big price fluctuations will be common as we enter the mania and approach the peak. In fact, when large daily movements become the norm, the historical record suggests we will be nearing the end of the cycle.
• Third, since current volatility has thus far been lower than what was experienced during the final phase of the 1970s bull market, we are not in a bubble, nor yet in the mania phase, and nowhere near the top. Remember that the next time you hear some nincompoop spew bubble talk on CNBC.

What can an investor do with this information? Prepare yourself for bigger daily swings – in both directions. And buying on those outsized drops is probably a good strategy…

Because we now know what volatility looks like.

Tags: Chart Documents, Commodity, Company Stocks, Decline, Doug Casey, Gold And Silver, Gold Price, Gold Rose, Gyrations, Juniors, Metals, Occasions, Perspective, Plunge, Price Changes, Related Company, September 18, Three Times, Volatile Stocks, Volatility
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Europe’s Great Deleveraging Has Only Just Begun

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

While Europe’s financial services sector equity prices have retraced almost half of their May11 to Oct11 losses as we are told incessantly not to underestimate the impact of the LTRO, Morgan Stanley points out the other side of the balance sheet will continue to sag. While short-term liquidity (at least EUR-based liquidity as USD FX Swap lines are back at record highs this week) may have seen some of its risk culled, the real tail risk of the ‘Great Deleveraging’ has only just begun. As MS notes, we may have avoided a credit crunch but European banks could delever between EUR1.5 and EUR2 Trillion over the next 18 months as the unwind is far from over. History suggests that over a longer time-frame, around five to six years – the deleveraging could reach EUR4.5 Trillion assuming zero deposit growth and the LTRO will slow but not stop the process. As we discussed last night, this deleveraging will inevitably lead to continued contraction in European lending to the real economy (no matter how much liquidity is force-fed to the banking system) which will most explicitly impact Southern and Peripheral Europe and the Emerging Markets of Central and Eastern Europe.

Deleveraging has indeed a long way to go if history is any guide.Morgan Stanley sees four broad buckets of bank deleveraging likely:

In the meantime, we assume the Central Banks of the world will do the only thing they know, print and funnel liquidity to these increasingly zombified financial institutions; and while Dicky Fisher was calming us all down this evening on our QE3 expectations (given Gold and Silver’s recent price action), it seems perhaps even the Fed is getting nervous at just how little surprise factor they have left given such a ravenously hungry deleveraging and insatiable need to maintain the market/economy’s nominally positive appearances.

Tags: Banking System, Central And Eastern Europe, Central Banks Of The World, Credit Crunch, Dicky, Eur1, European Banks, Financial Institutions, Financial Services Sector, Force Fed, Fx Swap, Gold And Silver, Insatiable Need, Market Economy, May11, Morgan Stanley, Ms Notes, Record Highs, Sector Equity, Term Liquidity
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Gold Reacts as Quantitative Easing Becomes Fait Accompli

Friday, January 27th, 2012

I had proposed at the beginning of QE2, we are now in a QEn environment.  My working assumption is when QE2 ended last spring we’d have about a 6-8 month window before the desperate Federal Reserve began QE3.  I was thrown a curveball with Operation Twist instead – although my time frame was accurate; it was just a program of a different flavor.  But no worries, yesterday Bernanke kicked the door open and whispered songs of additional measures at every opportunity possible during his news conference.   This fits with my working theory that aside from LTRO this incredible strength in the market was similar to the “pre game” we saw ahead of the official QE2 announcement.  This is the “David Tepper” effect we saw fall 2010 where “if the economy improves, it is good for the market – buy stocks.  If the economy falters, it is good for the markets as the Fed will QE – buy everything.”

Hence, go forward we have to change our working assumption to one that includes another massive program of asset purchases (many believe these will be concentrated on mortgage backed securities to get mortgage rates even lower than their current record rates).  Whatever the case, gold (and silver) reacted accordingly….

……and we are in another round of global stimulus – this time with the ECB joining forces.  I’d also point out the UK printed a poor GDP figure yesterday and we certainly should expect a new round of quantitative easing out of the Bank of England shortly as well.   Of course, in the very short term this is now all “known” news, so we’ll see how long the market can continue the non stop ‘teflon’ rally without nary a resting point.

Via Reuters:

• Bernanke on Wednesday opened the door a bit wider for the Fed to return to buying securities in the months ahead to buttress a weak recovery and keep inflation from slipping too far below its newly adopted 2-percent target.
• “It sounds like the finger is on the trigger,” said Thomas Simons, a money market economist at Jefferies & Co.
• “Probably the main take-away from the press conference is the sense conveyed by Bernanke that it would not take much of a disappointment in growth or inflation to get the Fed to start another round of QE,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at J.P. Morgan. ”In fact, from his answers it’s not even clear any disappointment would be necessary to see more QE,” Feroli wrote in a note, adding he was not forecasting another round of asset purchases even if the bar for action was low.
• “I think it could happen any time now, based on the language that we saw today,” said Eric Stein, a portfolio manager at Eaton Vance in Boston.
• Economists at 12 of 18 primary dealers, the large financial institutions that do business directly with the Fed, believe the central bank will undertake further quantitative easing, according to a Reuters poll after Bernanke’s news conference.
• The Fed has trained its sights on the stalled housing market in recent months, so any move to QE3 is most widely expected to involve buying mortgage securities to help bring down further already record-low mortgage interest rates.

Disclosure Notice

Any securities mentioned on this page are not held by the author in his personal portfolio. Securities mentioned may or may not be held by the author in the mutual fund he manages, the Paladin Long Short Fund (PALFX). For a list of the aforementioned fund’s holdings at the end of the prior quarter, visit the Paladin Funds website at http://www.paladinfunds.com/holdings/blog

Tags: Asset Purchases, Bank Of England, Buy Stocks, Curveball, David Tepper, ECB, Fait Accompli, Gold And Silver, Known News, Last Spring, Massive Program, Mortgage Backed Securities, Mortgage Rates, News Conference, Qe, Qe2, Resting Point, Reuters, Stimulus, Target
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Scared by Precious Metals Volatility – Identify Severe Undervaluation Points in Gold and Silver vs. Tyring to Call Perfect Bottoms

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

For a new investor in gold and silver, here is the most lucid piece of advice I can offer. Identifying severe undervaluation points in gold and silver, buying gold and silver assets during these times, and not worrying about interim short-term volatility, even if the immediate volatility is downward, is much more likely to impact your accumulation of wealth in a positive manner than trying to perfectly time market tops and bottoms in the highly manipulated gold and silver game. I am posting this article today to help all gold and silver investors, especially those new to the game, to frame their perspectives about gold and silver price behavior in the proper manner. I hope this article helps gold and silver investors so stand firm and maintain their faith in the face of anti-gold, anti-silver banker propaganda and that it helps investors to identify significant corrections in gold and silver as huge buying opportunities, and not as times of despair, that do not require perfect timing to yield very significantly rewards. During the last week of 2011 and the first couple of weeks of 2012, I posted two articles on our blog that I felt would be critical to investment success this year.

Did Bankers Deliberately Crash MF Global to Crash Gold and Silver Prices?

Gold & Silver Banker-Cartel Prolonged Price Suppression Has Set the Foundation for an Explosive Move Higher in 2012

In the first article, “Did Bankers Deliberately Crash MF Global to Crash Gold and Silver Prices?” I discussed two crucial points that are important to anyone that keeps any amount of digital savings in a bank (due to the fractional reserve system, the majority of the global currency in circulation today exists in digital form only). One, bankers deliberately invented paper markets in gold and silver to kill the influence that the physical demand and supply determinants of gold and silver have over prices. Two, bankers have historically rapidly contracted and expanded paper gold and paper silver contracts (that are backed with nothing but air) to introduce volatile movements in gold and silver with the express intent of scaring people away from real money (physical gold and physical silver) and keeping people invested in their bogus paper and mostly digital money (Euros, USD, Yuan, Yen, Pounds Sterling, etc.).

In relation to the MF Global debacle, we released private messages to our members that warned them that the MF Global liquidation and theft of client assets provided hard direct proof and critical legal precedent, that in the event of a bankruptcy of a major financial firm, clients had zero rights and property theft was now being sanctioned by and approved of by the State. There are still millions of people today that don’t understand the very dangerous precedent that MF Global set for future bankruptcies of financial firms that WILL HAPPEN in coming years.

If you have not been keeping up-to-date with the MF Global dispute over hundreds of millions of dollars of client money, then I highly urge you to read these three articles below:

MF Global Clients May Lose in $700 Million Bankruptcy Fight

SW Minnesota Farmer Testifies in Commodity Scam

How JP Morgan And George Soros Ended Up With MF Global Customer Money

The first MF Global article shows you that it is still a strong possibility that clients will lose $700+ million of their money they had with MF Global before it declared their bankruptcy. That is not a sum to sneeze at by any means. The second MF Global article is in regard to a Minnesota farmer that has not been able to recover $253,000 he held at MF Global. The farmer claimed, “This money was real money in real banks. It wasn’t under somebody’s mattress,” a statement that underscores the lack of understanding about our monetary system that exists among the masses. In fact, the opposite of what the farmer stated is becoming true today. The vast majority of money that is used in global financial transactions today exists only in digital form, not even in paper form, so paper money stored under one’s mattress is more “real” than any digital bytes on a computer at your bank. Secondly, real money is not fiat digital or paper currency but real money is physical gold and physical silver, NOT paper gold and paper silver as those that bought gold futures contracts with MF Global, hoping to take delivery of physical gold with their paper contracts, sadly discovered. The third MF Global article emphasizes, just as the US & many EU countries demonstrated during the 2008 free fall of financial stocks, that lawmakers and regulators are in the back pockets of bankers and will always change the laws at their whim to benefit the bankers and to defraud the people.

In 2008 to prevent bank stocks from plummeting that were deservedly plummeting, lawmakers in the EU and the US forced a short squeeze higher in financial stocks by arbitrarily changing the laws and banning any short sale of any bank stocks. Even though MF Global was clearly operating as a commodities firm, they applied for and were granted, the right to be dissolved as an equities firm. In this case, everyone from the legal system and the trustee of MF Global are merely ignoring the law to profit the bankers and defraud the clients.

“Rather than being treated as a bankruptcy of a commodities brokerage firm under sub-chapter IV of the Chapter 7 bankruptcy law, MF Global was treated as an equities firm (sub-chapter III) for the purposes of its bankruptcy, and this is why the MF Global customer money in so-called segregated accounts ‘disappeared’. In a brokerage firm bankruptcy, the customers get their money first, while in an equities firm bankruptcy, the customers are at the end of the line.”

In laymen’s terms, the unfolding debacle regarding MF Global also has critical repercussions and implications regarding the implied safety of any money you have in a money market account or savings account at a bank. Remember MF Global clients believed that their money was being held in “segregated” accounts that protected their assets in the event of a bankruptcy. If you don’t believe that the MF Global bankruptcy proceedings has affected how banks view their clients’ deposits, then you are hugely mistaken. At the end of last year, Bloomberg ran a story titled “BofA Said to Split Regulators Over Moving Merrill Derivatives to Bank Unit.” In this article, the journalist stated, “The bank doesn’t believe regulatory approval is needed”. ZeroHedge explained why BofA was making this move in their article “Bank Of America Forces Depositors To Backstop Its $53 Trillion Derivative Book To Prevent A Few Clients From Departing The Bank”:

“it shifted anywhere up to the total of $53 trillion of the total derivatives it held as of June 30 (as Zero Hedge previously reported) on its books at Q2 from the Holding Company, which was downgraded last by Moody’s from A2 to Baa1 (the third-lowest investment grade rating) to its retail bank, which was downgraded to the far more palatable A2 (from Aa3). The reason for the transfer? Bank customers who were uneasy with the fact that suddenly the collateral backstoping the operating entity handling their counterparty risk was downgraded to just above junk, demanded that said counterparty risk be mitigated by the bank’s $1 trillon in deposits.”

The MF Global case has clearly demonstrated that any insurance of banking accounts up to $100,000 or $250,000, no matter what country in which you reside, is simply MEANINGLESS if

(1) the insurance company insuring the aggregate deposits in your country is severely underfunded;

(2) the ruling corporatocracy allows financial firms to steal your property in the event of a bankruptcy; and

(3) banks are using customer deposits as collateral against the riskiest of their junk assets.

All three of the above have already been proven to be the case inside the United States and will likely be the case in countries around the world as well. From the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (FDIC) own website, you can find this statement:

“On July 21, 2010, the President signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) into law. The Dodd-Frank Act established a minimum designated reserve ratio (DRR) of 1.35% of estimated insured deposits, [and] mandates that the FDIC adopt a restoration plan should the fund balance fall below 1.35 percent.”

As recently as March, 2009 the US Deposit Insurance Fund had as little as $13 billion to insure nearly $4.83 trillion of deposits in US banks. By mid-2009, five US banks, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, held about 39% of all deposits in the US and in 2012, that figure is almost certainly higher given the large number of US bank failures since mid-2009 until the present day, including very large US banks like Washington Mutual (which yours truly predicted in advance). It doesn’t take a math genius to understand that should just one of these top US banks fail,

(1) the Deposit Insurance Fund would be completely wiped out, thus rendering the $250,000 guarantee of bank deposits worthless and meaningless; or

(2) necessitate the creation of trillions of new money to maintain the guarantee, thus severely degrading the value of all existing money, thereby making the guarantee worthless once again.

Should a large US bank or European bank go bankrupt, a highly likely event in the future that can only be prevented by excessive monetary creation out of thin air, backed by nothing, (which in essence is an admission that the bank is bankrupt), then once can refer to the recent MF Global debacle to understand that no one will have any rights in recouping any money that is lost during a bank’s bankruptcy. If push truly comes to shove during a bankruptcy of a financial firm, and a decision must be made to either make the clients whole or the creditors of the bank whole, we all know that the clients (us) will lose the battle.

These critical talking points lead nicely into our second blog article, “Gold & Silver Banker-Cartel Prolonged Price Suppression Has Set the Foundation for an Explosive Move Higher in 2012.” As we stated in that article, sentiment was the lowest in nearly three years regarding gold & silver mining stocks at the end of 2011 and that entering 2012, bankers were still heavily distributing propaganda that silver was going to crash to $20 an ounce and gold was going to crash to about $850 to $1,000 an ounce. I made it clear in that article that strong fundamentals in the gold & mining sector combined with super low bullish sentiment in the mining sector produced a super strong buying opportunity and fantastic valuation for gold & silver mining stocks. In this article, I stated:

“there are still many reasons to expect a stellar next couple of years from gold and silver performance, including the mining stocks. From a technical standpoint, gold and silver appear to be on the verge of making a very significant run higher. I’m not saying that this will happen tomorrow, but it does look very probable within a short-time period. From a manipulation factor standpoint, gold and silver also look poised for a run higher too.”

and

“we see 2011 as nothing more than a temporary setback in gold/silver mining stocks…from a technical standpoint, gold and silver appear to be on the verge of making a very significant run higher. I’m not saying that this will happen tomorrow, but it does look very probable within a short-time period.”

Given the severe undervaluation of gold and silver and the fact that nobody should ever trust paper gold and paper silver futures as a means of taking delivery of real physical gold and real physical silver ever again. We believe that the divergences between paper gold and silver futures and spot prices and real physical gold and silver prices will eventually become enormous, as we first started predicting would happen in 2008, with premiums in the price of physical gold and physical silver eventually rising so high above the paper prices that the paper gold and paper silver markets will either

(1) eventually be ignored for purposes of price discovery; or

(2) eventually implode into its own current cesspool of lies, fraud and deceit.

Many new investors to gold and silver investing always make the mistake of trying to time exact bottoms and also to repeatedly time exact tops and to exit and re-enter markets repeatedly during the year. Given the enormous amount of volatility that the global banking cartel has introduced into all paper gold and paper silver products, including mining stocks, we believe that this type of mentality is counter-productive when the long-term picture in gold and silver has been as clear as it has been for the past several years. For example, when silver dropped below $30 an ounce last year, it was entirely irrelevant to one’s long-term wealth whether one purchased silver at $30, $29 or $28 an ounce given the fact that the probability silver will eventually rise to triple-digit dollar prices is extremely high.

We have always told our members that is a mistake to try to time the absolute bottoms of these corrections. When tremendous value exists in a sector, as existed in mid-January in the mining sector, then we always tell all new members to our services to “go all in” in their buying strategies during these times and to not worry about any short-term downside volatility or any of the misinformation being spewed by the financial mass media during these times about collapsing gold and silver bubbles. Furthermore, when the US Federal Reserve announced recently on January 25, 2012 that they would be extending low-rates into late 2014 and jump-started a one-day 5%, 6%, 7%, 8% explosion in gold and silver stock, this underscores my point even further. When the global banker cartel slams gold & silver mining stocks by 10% or more as they did at the end of last year, taking an already undervalued sector to greatly undervalued status, if one understands fundamentals, one will always view this as nothing more than a buying opportunity and not as a time to panic.

The performance of our Crisis Investment Opportunities newsletter portfolio, in August of 2010, was flat YTD, but then piled on whopping +33% gains in the last four months of the year. In 2008, our portfolio gains of a nominal 3.21% gain was followed by explosive gains of +63.32% in 2009. Though last year was our most difficult year to date since we launched our newsletter in June of 2007, our cumulative gains from June, 2007 to December 31, 2011 of +135 .18% has still outperformed the S&P 500, the FTSE 100, the ASX 200 respectively by +153.12%. +152.37%, and +169.20%. Thus, our track record of outstanding performance over time backs up our strong belief that worrying about every rise and fall in gold and silver every year will do nothing but drive you crazy and merely prevent you from handling your investments properly and intelligently. It is impossible to predict every single global banking cartel smash down of gold and silver with perfect accuracy; however, as long as one can foresee enough of them, as our outperformance of the PHLX Gold/Silver index by +104.75% over the last 4-1/2 years proves, and maintain the nerve and confidence to stay invested in gold and silver even when the “pundits” are screaming at you to get out, as they were at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, then you will do quite fine in continuing to build wealth as the monetary crisis deepens.

If one understands the possibility that all digital credits in your bank and investment accounts could disappear given the failure or a major global bank (an inevitable event it seems right now), then one should clearly understand that owning physical gold and physical silver is NOT an option but a necessity if you are to survive the second phase of this global monetary crisis. Even if we are wrong about the failure of digital financial products and fraudulent paper derivatives in the future, we will still be right, as owning physical gold and physical silver will continue to protect the purchasing power of people’s money as this monetary crisis deepens. Remember, though many have been jumping on the gold and silver bandwagon this week, we, at SmartKnowledgeU, have been publicly advocating gold (and) silver ownership since 2006, and privately, for years prior to 2006, for the same exact reasons we’re still advocating it today.

The global banking & monetary system is a fraud, a mess, and there is no turning back from US dollar & Euro destruction at this point.

Just click here to read our 2006 article “Gold’s Speculative Stigma is Unwarranted.”

It has taken about five years since we wrote that article for the public-at-large (at least in the Western world) to understand that gold’s label as a speculative investment is not deserved and is mere banker propaganda. Within the next five years, the remaining skeptics will be forced to finally recognize that gold and silver are real money, and that Yen, Pounds, USD, and Euros are not. Given the severe undervaluation of gold/silver mining stocks, junior mining stocks in particular, and the undervaluation of gold and silver right now, we believe now is an optimal time for new investors to gold and silver to begin their journey. To help all newbie investors to gold/silver begin their journey, we are currently cutting as much as 30% off of all our major services during a special, limited two-week sale that will run from January 26, 2012 to February 9, 2012. To receive the coupon codes for this sale, please visit us at www.smartknowledgeu.com and please join our mailing list.

About the author: In 2006, fed up with the rampant immorality of Wall Street, JS Kim, walked away from his job with a Wall Street firm to found and become the Chief Investment Strategist of SmartKnowledgeU, a fiercely independent investment research & consulting firm. Since then, JS has tirelessly campaigned to increase understanding about real money like gold and silver and about the fraudulent nature of fiat money.

Tags: Explosive Move, Fractional Reserve System, Global Currency, Gold And Silver, Gold And Silver Prices, Investment Success, Market Tops, Mf Global, New Investor, Paper Markets, precious metals, Price Behavior, Silver Assets, Silver Game, Silver Investors, Silver Price, Supply Determinants, Term Volatility, Tops And Bottoms, Tyring
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Gold & Silver Cartel’s Prolonged Price Suppression Set Foundation for Explosive Move Higher in 2012

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Recently, public interest in gold and silver and gold/silver mining stocks has been at multi-year lows. And that is a super bullish contrarian indicator. In fact, a glance at the Gold Miners Bullish Percent Index illustrates that sentiment to start the year was at a three-year low.

At the end of last year, there was a lot of chatter on the internet, due to the end-of-the year slam down effected on gold and silver futures by the global banking cartel, that silver prices were going go collapse to $20 an ounce and gold prices were going to collapse well below $1000 an ounce by the first quarter of 2012. We felt that these discussions and the consequent, induced panic selling out of gold/silver mining stocks and physical gold/silver at the end of 2011 was highly unwarranted and the result of people falling for the global banking cartel price suppression tricks. In fact, we sent Special Alerts to all of our clients at the end of 2011 informing them that the banking cartel often paints charts in gold and silver to fool people and that one cannot make accurate predictive behavior based upon the assessment of technical charts alone.

At SmartKnowledgeU, it has always been our mantra that technical analysts often make huge mistakes in their predictive calls due to their sole reliance on technical charting and therefore often have to flip-flop like a politician on their calls regarding gold and silver, one moment calling for a huge crash and to sell everything gold and silver, the next moment calling for a huge run-up and to buy back everything gold and silver. While nimbleness is a good trait to have given the volatility of gold and silver assets and staying on the sidelines is sometimes necessary, trying to get out of the market on every single weekly downturn in gold and silver will surely drive an investor insane. Thus, sometimes it is necessary to ride out difficult periods of volatility and maintain your eye on the long-term trend instead of short-term banking cartel tricks. We prefer to remain more long-term trends with our calls and to keep our eyes grounded on a more fundamental outlook that incorporates technical analysis with more than a decade of knowledge regarding global banking cartel price suppression schemes. We have stated since day one of launching our company in 2006 that gold/silver technical analysis performed without incorporating the contextual nuances of global banking cartel price suppression schemes will not be accurate, especially since the cartel’s gold and silver price suppression schemes exert the most influence right now over setting the futures and spot prices.

Last year, we informed our clients at the very start of the year in January of 2011 that 2011 would yield massive volatility in gold and silver assets, proclaiming the coming year as “The Year of Volatility”. Before the year started, we knew that 2011 would produce a fierce battle between the global banking cartel and the dynamics of the physical markets for gold and silver as the global monetary crisis deepened. And indeed it did. Though we can mark 2011 as a win for the global banking cartel as they collapsed open interest in gold and silver futures repeatedly throughout the year by raising initial and maintenance margins for gold and silver futures (once raising margins on silver futures a ridiculous five times in just 9 days when silver broached $50 an ounce) and by also using the MF Global bankruptcy to force involuntary client liquidation of gold/silver futures at the end of the year, I am confident that all the banking shenanigans of 2011 has set the stage for a spectacular year ahead for PMs in 2012. If you are interested in my thoughts about how the banking cartel used the despicable MF Global fiasco to collapse gold and silver prices, you can read about it here: Did Bankers Deliberately Crash MF Global to Crash Gold and Silver Prices?

In 2011, due to the extreme volatility in gold/silver mining stocks, there were periods we opted to cash out and sit on the sidelines preceding banking cartel smash downs of gold and silver prices, and other periods we opted to stay in the market and ride out the extreme volatility due to our belief that the downside volatility would be short-lived. Thus, admittedly we had to sacrifice short-term performance for our mission of a longer-term reward with the gold and silver mining stocks in 2011. As you can see in the chart below, the HUI Gold Bugs Index re-tested lows in the 490-500 range on five separate occasions last year and greatly underperformed the metals themselves. No wonder bullish sentiment regarding gold and silver stocks just recently hit a three-year low!

However, despite the severe underperformance of the mining stocks last year, from the launch of our Crisis Investment Opportunities portfolio in June 2007 to December 31, 2011, even in light of our slight setback of 2011, our cumulative performance of +135.18% during the past four-and-a-half year period has still respectively outperformed the S&P 500, UK FTSE 100, and Australian ASX200 indexes by whopping +153.12%, +152.37% and +169.20% margins. Furthermore, our Crisis Investment Opportunities portfolio has even outperformed our closest comparable index, the Philadelphia Gold/Silver Sector (XAU) index by a whopping +104.75%. Thus we see 2011, as nothing more than a temporary setback in gold/silver mining stocks, and we’ll explain why below.

More than 3 years ago, on October 16, 2008, I wrote an article titled, JS Kim Uncovers Four Parallel Markets for Gold: Asia Futures, NY Futures, Physical Bullion, Physical Coins. In this article, I discussed the complicity of regulatory agencies such as the CFTC in the global banking cartel price suppression scheme executed against gold and silver that was, at the time, creating very significant premiums in the futures and spot prices in Asia over the Western markets, and in physical gold/silver prices over paper gold/ silver prices. Since the time I wrote that article, I have followed up with many more articles that express my belief that the premiums of physical gold/silver will increase, and eventually in exponential fashion, over the prices of bogus global banking cartel-produced paper gold/silver derivative products. Eventually, I believe that the world will ignore these bogus paper gold/silver markets entirely when setting prices for physical gold/silver. Because the global banking cartel expended so many of their bullets in 2011 in keeping the price of gold and silver much lower than their respective free market prices, it is of my opinion that it will be much more difficult for them to contain the price of gold and silver moving forward in 2012.

Today, there are still many reasons to expect a stellar next couple of years from gold and silver performance, including the mining stocks. From a technical standpoint, gold and silver appear to be on the verge of making a very significant run higher. I’m not saying that this will happen tomorrow, but it does look very probable within a short-time period. From a manipulation factor standpoint, gold and silver also look poised for a run higher too. So the two factors I use to assess gold and silver’s direction both appear aligned with one another to move gold and silver higher very soon.

As far as the timeframe? Currently, due to excessive banker meddling in gold and silver futures markets, and the unknown factor of when greater divergence will occur between physical and paper PM prices as public awareness of the paper scam grows, the exact “when” part of the equation is the most difficult to assess, though I still believe that we will see some strong moves higher in gold and silver during the first quarter of 2012. Furthermore, I strongly believe that gold and silver will still both rise multiples higher than their current banker-suppressed price and that 2012 will see periods of explosive growth for gold and silver, more so for silver than gold, and that PM mining stocks, although accompanied by great volatility once again, will perform much better than they did in 2011. I believe that the largest difference between 2012 and 2011 will be, despite some continued large bouts of volatility in the PMs, a much stronger annual trend higher for gold and silver.

The start of 2011 was a phenomenal start for junior mining PM stocks but the latter half of the year was very negative. Still, one could have done very well in 2011 with junior mining stocks by taking profits off the table when they existed and letting one’s remaining capital ride risk-free in the junior mining sector. In addition to using discipline to protect profits when they exist in the junior mining sector, the greatest friend of a gold/silver investor is patience. Sometimes one knows that great moves higher are coming, but one’s timing may be off by a mere six to nine months. Patience will allow one to still reap the bulk of the rewards from these great moves higher as long as one isn’t shaken out of the markets by the banking cartel induced price volatility in gold/silver assets. To this end, I leave you with 10-year charts of gold and silver. Sometimes, it really is necessary to step back and take a deep breath to see the forest from the trees.

About the author: JS Kim is the Chief Investment Strategist and Founder of SmartKnowledgeU, a fiercely independent investment research & consulting firm with a focus on precious metals. For much more detailed commentary about gold and silver, consider the SmartKnowledgeU Crisis Investment Opportunities newsletter. To sign up for our free investment newsletter, please visit SmartKnowledgeU and sign up here.

Tags: Collapse, Contrarian Indicator, Downturn, Explosive Move, Global Banking, Gold And Silver, Gold Miners, Gold Prices, Lows, One Moment, Set Foundation, Silver And Gold, Silver Assets, Silver Cartel, Silver Futures, Silver Mining, Silver Prices, Sole Reliance, Technical Analysts, Technical Charts
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Gold Market Radar (January 1, 2012)

Sunday, January 1st, 2012

Gold Market Radar (January 1, 2012)

For the week, spot gold closed at $1,563.70 down $42.65 per ounce, or 2.7 percent.  Gold stocks, as measured by the NYSE Arca Golds BUGS Index, fell 2.4 percent. The U.S. Trade-Weighted Dollar Index rose 0.4 percent for the week.

Strengths

• With the end of tax loss selling on December 23 for Canadians, the pressure to lock in losses for the year was abated and there were some significant rebounds over the last five trading days of the year.  Gran Colombia Gold surged 16 percent while both Romarco Minerals and San Gold gained 6 percent.
• Although we have been seeing some profit-taking towards year-end, gold has advanced 10 percent, heading for the eleventh straight annual gain. Gold returns are largely uncorrelated with the market and this has boosted its demand as an alternative investment for portfolio diversification amid slumping equities.  Gold’s high for the year was a record $1,923.70, reached on September 6.
• Holdings in exchange-traded products backed by physical bullion are increasing for the first time in three weeks, rising 0.3 percent this week after falling in the previous two weeks 1.5 percent.  Buyers are coming back as the market looks oversold at current levels.

Weaknesses

• The United States Mint reported this week that sales of the U.S. gold and silver bullion coins slowed in the fourth quarter as precious metal prices fell from their highs, signaling that investor interest in physical metal purchases may be waning.
• Generally, news flow in the gold space was negative for the week.  Seasonally slow jewelry demand in India (the world’s largest gold buying nation) and a ban from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) on all non-official gold trading exchanges in the world’s number two gold consuming company, all contributed to weaker sentiment.  The Bombay Bullion Association said on Tuesday that December’s imports of gold bullion to India will likely stand 50 percent below December 2010 levels.  The PBOC ordered the closure of all gold trading platforms and services outside the Shanghai Gold Exchange and Shanghai Futures Exchange.
• Due to surging gold prices in rupee terms, to lift sales, Indian jewelers have reduced the gold content to make up for the loss.  A steep jump in the price of gold in the first half of the year impacted demand for gold, while the volatility over the remaining months ensured that gold traders and jewelry retailers destocked.  Jewelers in some cases were replacing the weight of gold with diamonds to keep investors’ interest.

Opportunities

• The Head of Research at China’s Central Bank was quoted saying that the country should buy gold as the only safe place for risk-averse investors when other assets are losing value.  Zhang Jianhua, the head of the research department at PBOC, wrote in the Financial News that, “the Chinese government needs to further optimize China’s foreign exchange asset portfolio and to seek relatively low entry points to buy gold assets.”
• We would expect there to be renewed interest in picking up many of the beaten down gold stocks with the start of the New Year as the sell off was exacerbated by tax loss selling in both the U.S. and Canada in the fourth quarter.  Seasonally, the January Effect is in play and gold prices typically see seasonal strength up until the April/May window.
• Securities and Exchange Commission data shows John Paulson, Paul Touradji and Eric Mindich, all hedge fund managers, sold bullion this year.  While there have been reports of high profile investors cutting their gold exposure it cannot be conceded that this conclusively ends the run in gold bullion.  Certainly some of the bullion selling reflected investor redemption requests, and fund manager preference to sell bullion instead of stocks, which on a relative basis have underperformed.  Turmoil in Europe has also been a factor in pushing the euro lower to the benefit of the dollar and detriment of gold.  Keep the economic fundamentals in mind as the debt and unemployment problems are far from being solved and the politicians will be more likely to stimulate growth and print money to extinguish debt as they seek to get reelected in 2012.

Threats

• Zimbabwe announced that it is considering setting up a ban on raw platinum exports, in an effort to force miners to set up refineries in the country.  Zimbabwe has the second-largest known platinum reserves in the world.
• Peru’s government may declare a state of emergency in the northern Andes should protests resume against Newmont’s Minas Conga gold project valued at $4.8billion.  It has been speculated that those protesting against the project have planned a march in the highland region for January 2-3.  The government has said it will take legal action against the protest leader, Gregorio Santos, for barring all industrial activity in the area around Newmont’s project.
• Beginning January 20, 2012, workers of Freeport McMoRan’s Grasberg mine, who have been on strike since September 15, will gradually return to work.  More than 8,000 workers went on strike demanding higher wages, and the union has agreed to a 37 percent pay rise over the next two years. Copper prices may see some slackness in the near term.

Tags: Alternative Investment, Bank Of China, Days Of The Year, Dollar Index, Gold And Silver, Gold Bullion, Gold Market, gold stocks, Gran Colombia, Investor Interest, Market Radar, Nyse Arca, Pboc, Portfolio Diversification, Precious Metal Prices, Romarco Minerals, Silver Bullion Coins, Spot Gold, U S Gold, United States Mint
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Gold and Silver Mining Stocks Offer the Best Value of any Sector in the Stock Market By Far and By a Wide Margin

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

by JS Kim, SmartKnowledgeU

Today, gold and silver mining stocks offer the best value by far of any sector in any stock market anywhere in the world. Due to the recent massive volatility that bankers have introduced into the PM stock sector, and the fact that commercial investment advisers worldwide have erroneously re-educated millions of people with the concept that volatility equals risk, the majority of people worldwide will miss a massive opportunity in gold and silver mining stocks over the next several years due to their misguided belief that gold and silver mining stocks cannot escape the throes of banker manipulation.

There has been much acceptance of the theory that Central Banks and bankers perpetually manipulate gold and silver spot prices through the gold/silver futures markets due to strong circumstantial, non free-market evidence such as gold/silver futures prices being significantly higher in Asian futures markets versus Western futures markets for long stretches of time as well as out-and-out flagrant behavior such as the irrational raising of initial and maintenance margins on silver futures five times in nine working days into falling prices instead of into rising prices. For those not aware of the multitude of schemes Central Banks execute to suppress gold and silver futures prices, please refer to this article, JS Kim Uncovers Four Parallel Markets for Gold, when during the Wall Street collapse of 2008, bullion banks (controlled by Central Banks) routinely knocked the gold futures price down by $10, $20, $30 and sometimes even $40 an ounce usually right at market open of the NY COMEX at a time when gold was trading at less than $900 an ounce and such movements reflected 2%+ to 3%+ waterfall movements downward in price (comparatively speaking today, such percent movements would consist of $40 to $50 an ounce movements downward.

Since then, bullion banks have executed this scheme over and over, pulling bids at the market open of the NY COMEX to cause a waterfall decline in gold futures prices in a matter of a few minutes. Throw in for good measure that you can check all US holidays when the COMEX is closed for the past five years and you can find nary a day when gold is not higher or at least about even, simply for the reason that the NY Comex is closed and the Western banking cartel is non-operational in the gold/silver markets on these days. If this circumstantial evidence, literally the tip of the iceberg in the mountain of circumstantial evidence of banker price suppression schemes against gold and silver futures, is insufficient to convince the most stubborn of skeptics, then consider former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s statement in 1966 that:

“An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense – perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire – that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other.”

Would not statists that support the doctrine of seizing centralized control over economic planning and monetary policy, not covertly and actively suppress the price of gold, if the most famous Central Banker himself stated that they possess “an almost hysterical antagonism” towards gold? Today, nearly half a century later, banker propaganda and re-education campaigns regarding gold and silver have been so successful that Greenspan’s accusation that many defenders of the laissez-faire doctrine fail to recognize that gold and economic freedom are inseparable still stands true. I’ve read numerous essays by those that argue for less government interference in business and monetary affairs and for stronger free markets but yet vehemently deny that bankers ever interfere in gold and silvers futures markets through active price suppression schemes.

However, as I’ve written extensively about this topic for six years at my investment blog theUndergroundInvestor.com and will address this topic further in two books I will release by year’s end, I do not want to stray from the main topic of this essay: Gold and silver mining shares offer tremendous value and tremendous upside right now due to the fact that bankers have worked very diligently to suppress the price of gold and silver mining shares for the past 12 months. I’ve always been surprised over the years by the lack of accusations from the CEOs of the mining world that one of the primary reasons, if not the primary reason, for the underperformance of their share prices in recent years are banker price suppression schemes enacted against the PM shares. I realize that many industry analysts refrain from making this accusation due to the fact that they are being afraid of labeled by their peers or superiors as “loony, conspiracy theorists” but who cares if someone at the CFTC or some top PM analyst at Goldman Sachs or Citigroup calls you a “loony”. Due to macro and micro-economic predictions that have the track record equivalency of Ben Bernanke, most of these guys have as much credibility as a talking dolphin, so to be discredited in an ad hominem attack by any of these guys should truly pose no worry. However, nearly all mainstream gold/silver analysts appear to still engage themselves in censoring the truth due to concerns of being ostracized by the mainstream financial industry. As far as I’m concerned, being ostracized by the criminal mainstream financial industry, in my opinion, should present one with the mark of credibility.

When I first started publicly speaking about the banker executed price suppression schemes against gold and silver futures prices six years ago, bankers tried to discredit and call me crazy back then, but now, six years later, such explanations for inexplicable movements downward in gold/silver futures markets when physical supply/demand fundamentals demand upward price movements are at times, even accepted by the mainstream media, or at a minimum, now reported by them instead of being ignored by them. These are huge steps forward in dispensing the red pill of truth to skeptics regarding the true reasons behind volatile price movements downward in the gold and silver markets. Furthermore, whenever I presented factual evidence of the manipulation in gold markets, most banking analysts that disagreed with me countered my arguments with simple ad hominem attacks that never once provided a solid refutation of, nor a credible argument against the evidence I presented, circumstantial and factual (in the form of Central Bank documents that specifically addressed their desire to suppress gold prices). I believe the same three stages of truth as described by German philosopher Shopenhauer, will also manifest itself in regard to PM mining shares just as they have manifested/are about to manifest with gold/silver prices: (1) First, truth is ridiculed; (2) Second, truth is violently opposed; and (3) Third, truth is accepted as self-evident. Finally, if people so widely accept now that bankers are interfering in suppressing much higher free-market prices from operating in gold and silver futures markets, is it really that much of a deductive leap to assume that they would also be interfering in suppressing free-market prices in gold and silver mining shares?

As is the case with the behavior of gold/silver futures markets, numerous illogical anomalies that manifest themselves with regularity in the gold/silver mining shares first made me suspect that bankers were routinely interfering with the prices of gold and silver mining shares. To illustrate my point, let’s look at the performance of a couple of flagship gold and silver mining shares versus the performance of some flagship retail and financial shares.

From the chart above, you can see that the mining shares either significantly outperformed or astoundingly outperformed non-mining industry companies with a similar market cap size in simple financial metrics except for share price appreciation in the last year, a category in which they astoundingly underperformed their competitors. I am not. In the case above, I have only provided a very basic example to illustrate how drastically undervalued share prices of producing gold and silver companies are right now. I fully realize that I am not comparing apples to oranges, but I merely wanted to illustrate how companies’ share prices with healthy earnings and revenues outside of the mining sector act, since bankers have targeted gold and silver mining shares as a sector for price suppression schemes. Thus, I had to look outside of the PM sector to provide examples of what should be happening with the PM mining share prices. And I only call the other company “competitors” of the mining stocks because the goal of commercial investment industry analysts is to prevent you from buying the most undervalued stocks in the entire market and to keep you invested in overvalued and overpriced stocks. After all, when gold and silver mining stocks finally get going in their next upleg, which may be very soon, investors will naturally want to also invest in physical gold and physical silver and thus dump the broad stock market index portfolios they may currently maintain. So in essence mining stocks are competitors of the retail and tech stocks though most would say they are not.

Furthermore, most would argue that substantially lower prices in the price component of PEG ratios are justified for the mining sector due to the typical volatility of mining shares, but this past year, this argument only serves to support my thesis regarding the fact that mining shares are the most undervalued sector and the most underappreciated sector in the market right now. Sectors that are viewed as volatile typically are expected to have lower share prices to compensate for the added risk of holding shares in that sector. However, this year, given that the broad stock market index of the S&P 500 has traveled an incredible 1,230+ points up and down since May 1st but has remained relatively unchanged in value, extra volatility of mining shares over components of broad stock market indexes does not justify lower share prices of the mining stocks. Furthermore, because banker attacks on gold and silver mining shares, whether achieved by indirect take downs of gold/silver futures prices and/or direct sell-offs of the shares during times of low volume trading, are responsible for the added volatility of PM shares, arguing that the volatility of the sector justifies lower PM share prices also loses credibility.

Even if we disregard this admittedly circumstantial argument, if we compare the trading ranges at which these four stocks traded at during most of the past 12 months, the volatility comparisons do not justify the huge differences in the PEG ratios of the past 12 months between the PM stocks and the stocks that trade on the broader stock market index. Chipotle traded between a range of $270 and $340, or a 25.93% spread for most of the year while Silver Wheaton traded in a range between $30 and $40 a share, or a spread of 33% most of the year, though both stocks traded both higher and lower than these ranges for short periods of time. Though this is but a comparison of two stocks out of hundreds of mining stocks and a couple thousand NYSE stocks, and though some may argue that Chipotle is overvalued at its current share price and PEG, many PM mining stocks across the board are flush with huge cash reserves, soaring revenues, double digit earnings growth for several consecutive quarters, but yet have experienced stagnant or even negative share price growth over the past 12 months. Again I am only comparing Chipotle to Silver Wheaton to highlight the massively manipulated state of flagship gold and silver mining companies and how company share prices that are not manipulated may behave in light of outstanding earnings over the past 12 months, and not because I believe a direct comparison is the most apropos one.

Besides the totally illogical performance of Barrick Gold and Silver Wheaton above when considering their PEG ratios and their massively positive earnings growth over the last year, I have witnessed numerous anomalies over the past decade that convince me beyond a shadow of doubt that bankers manipulate the prices of gold and silver mining stocks downward on a persistent and consistent basis to prevent the masses from understanding that ownership of physical gold and physical silver will liberate them from our current morally bankrupt, illegitimate and unconstitutional monetary and banking system. For example, during dozens of options expiration days over the past five years in particular, I have witnessed uptrends in the price of numerous mining stocks stall and shed 3% to 4% from the previous day’s market close on literally no negative news other than the fact that it was OpEx day. And usually the prices of mining stocks, on days when this happens, gap down significantly on market open. Then, the following Monday after OpEx day is finished, the uptrend in mining shares will resume. Yes, one can call this behavior coincidental but anyone that does so would be dismissing the laws of probabilities and calling for a new mathematical paradigm to apply only on OpEx days. The percent chance that attributes such regular and repeated price action behavior that occurs only on OpEx days to the probabilities of “random noise” would likely come in at less than a fraction of 1%.

For the first time I can recall in recent times, the CEO of a major PM mining company finally spoke out about the ridiculous and likely intervention of the banking cartel in suppressing the price of not only PM futures but PM share prices. Keith Neumeyer, the CEO of First Majestic mining, recently voiced his opinions behind the downward price volatility not only of gold/silver futures but of gold/silver mining shares: “I don’t think supply and demand has anything to do with the price [of silver], unfortunately. The world we live in today is a paper environment where silver is priced by financial circumstances. Banks, traders and investors around the world move markets to where they want them to be. Governments and commercials—big banks like HSBC and JP Morgan—all have a piece of the action. They alternately work together or sometimes against each other. All these forces price the metal. That’s one reason we’re seeing the volatility that we’re seeing today.” Dramatic silver volatility “has to do with the financial instruments that we trade in and with the fact that silver trades a billion ounces per day on the COMEX alone when there are 26 to 30 million ounces of silver available for delivery. With that kind of leverage, you just don’t have a proper market… The governments, regulators and bullion banks have let the silver market get more and more leveraged. We’ve seen a lot of wealth destruction as a result of this leverage and we’re going to see a lot more until, finally, the governments decide to change the system.” With these scathing comments about the casino like nature of banker-rigged gold and silver markets, Neumeyer hit the nail squarely on its head.

Tags: Bullion Banks, Central Banks, Comex, Commercial Investment, Futures Markets, Futures Price, Futures Prices, Gold And Silver, Gold And Silver Spot Prices, Gold Futures, gold stocks, Investment Advisers, Massive Opportunity, Silver Futures, Silver Mining, Silver Spot Prices, Stock Sector, Throes, Volatility, Wide Margin
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