Is the gold price a bubble?

Some of you might be worried about the gold price being a bubble, so I would like to place your minds at easy. There are a number of reasons why the gold price is not a bubble:

1. Gold is appealing when there is no returns on other asset classes. In fact gold is appealing if only bonds are low-yielding because only a little bit of that money need to 'slosh around' into gold equities and derivatives.

2. Derivatives are less alluring when financial markets are panicky, so fund managers prefer ETFs, physical gold, mining stocks with long life production capacity, to avoid financial risk exposure.

3. Risk of further currency debasement - the equity markets are going to fall at some point because of low returns will eventually see stocks sold off...US unemployment is around 10%.

4. Risk of slower global growth

5. Gold has very small industrial demand, and very large investment holdings. During times like these 'speculative demand' can greatly add to the price

6. Gold after adjusting for inflation since 1980 ($760/oz) is not very high. Thirty years of inflation means gold is cheap. We looked some time ago at the historic dow jones/gold ratio and concluded that gold can go to $2400/oz without much trouble. The more debasement of the USA, the higher the Dow will go, so rest assured $2400/oz is based on a 10,000 pt Dow. It might be 20,000 in 5 years time. Anyway, you don't need to speculate about that. This ratio has worked well for 113 years.

I personally like emerging gold producers. Africa has particular appeal because of the cheap cost of developing resources and the excellent exposure provided in Australia, Canada and the United States, as well as the London-based AIM (Alternative Investment Market). These markets also provide exposure to gold in Mongolia/China, Russia, Latin America and Indonesia/PNG.

I tend to forget the appeal of silver because there are few stocks in Australia chasing silver. The reason is that they mostly focus on Africa, Asia, whereas most silver mines are in Latin America and the USA.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Gold destined to rally to $1300-1350/oz level

The gold price has reached technical resistance again, which augers well for the achievement of a new high. The lead usually somes from the NY-London trading session, so we might expect this to happen in overnight trading for Australians.

Based on the established trend, we might expect the gold price in this rally to reach the $1300-1350/oz level, though that will ultimately depend on the price action. In the short term, there is the prospect of the price falling back to $1225-1230, however given the small downside, its safe to say that gold will be breaking out tonight. This makes gold and silver, or related stocks good buying at current levels. I don't advise buying physical gold. For upside its either call options, CFDs or spec miners/project developers. With the prospect of Kevin Rudd backing down on the miners tax, it might be good to anticipate that move. This makes companies like A1 Minerals, Integra Mining, CRE.ASX more attractive.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Silver looking for support at $18.82/oz

The fundamentals for the silver price are similar to the gold price. I anticipate support at the 18.82/oz level due to the currency considerations which are destined to give the precious metals support.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Silver prices reach support

Remember in the 1980s when gold rallied by 800%. Well before it did, the gold price halved. We have seen the same thing happen in silver of late. Silver has fallen back to important support levels, so its set to rally. All that money the Fed has created to re-capitalise the banks is going to prove inflationary in time. The implication then is that we want to hold asset classes which are not over-priced, like gold, silver, rural property, etc.
Silver is currently trading at $9.75/oz, up 33c overnight after halving in last 6 months. This is the time when you should be accumulating silver. You might ask me whether you should be trading Contracts for Difference (CFDs) in these commodities. I see no reason why you shouldn't because if these companies are exposed, your exposure is limited to the money on the table, and that's only 10% of your exposure if you are moderately geared to silver. You can actually gear silver as much as 20x as far as I'm aware, though it will depend on your CFD platform.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Base metals fall, gold/silver also

Gold, silver and base metal prices fell significantly overnight in the US. The fall in base metals was anticipated because the inflationary outlook inevitably was going to result in a tightening in interest rates, crimping global economic activity. The Fed is behind the rest of the world in that respect.

Gold and silver fell too, but less significantly, just losing their gains from the past week. I actually expect gold & silver to hold these levels. Gold can be expected to hold around $US875/oz, with some scope for weakness to $850, but thats likely to be temporary. Silver is well supported around $16.80/oz, though its industrial applications might similarly see a fall in this metal back to $15.00/oz, its just I dont see this happening. I think silver's spec appeal will see it hold with gold. During a period of speculative demand, the industrial side of supply/demand loses all significance. So basically I see gold and silver holding these levels.

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Andrew Sheldon
www.sheldonthinks.com

Silver $16.00, support at $15.50/oz

If you are interested trading silver then there are few suitable silver stocks in Australia. Macmin is one candidate, but the lack of resource upside makes them a poor candidate. Others tend to be explorers with alot of work to do. It makes more sense to look at US or Canadian stocks. Alternatively you can invest in silver through a CFD trading platform such as www.cmc-markets.com.
As we speak gold has fallen to $850/oz and silver has fallen with it back to $16.00/oz. This is not a support level, and since the US market has yet to close, I would not be surprised to see further weakness and a close either today or tomorrow around $15.50/oz. This is a strong support, and I dont see silver falling back to the $14.70 level. I expect silver prices to recover quickly, so $15.50 is a good entry level.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Silver consolidating $16.25-18.50/oz

I am expecting silver to consolidate within the $16.25-18.50/oz trading range for the near term. This will create some very good buying support off $16.25. Support is needed after the big fall in silver from $21.25/oz during March. The justification for the weakness is likely to be concerns over weaker economic outlook, which I suspect will drive all commodities lower.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Gold & silver performance

Alot of people seem to hold gold and silver in total disdain. I was just reading an article on Yahoo (http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/richricher/42433) by Robert Kiyosaki. There are several aspects to these complaints...but I was actually surprised to see that alot of people hate Kiyosaki...you would think they were blaming him for the property collapse, or not warning them. Just shows how much people are living in a totally rationalised dream world. I can't imagine more press on any issue but overheated US property markets for the last 2 years.
Well Kiyosaki's latest posting is his recommendation to buy silver. Critics argued that gold & silver had under-performed against other metals, that precious metals were no longer relevant, that silver was no longer used in film...so his a total idiot. Well first of all, gold has doubled and silver done even better over the last few year despite the popularity of digital cameras.

But more important I think for performance junkies is that you dont buy physical metal - you buy stocks. But consider some of the other benefits of metals over other industries...and tell me that it shouldn't be in your portfolio.

1. How many companies allow you to effectively choose which 'factories' (mines) you invest in?
2. How many industries can you get supply cost curves for each producer?
3. How many industries have terminal markets so they can sell everything they produce?

4. How many industries offer producers the opportunity to lock in (hedge) future prices?

5. How many other commodities give you 100%+ price rises?

6. How many other producers give you a total breakdown of mine costs and revenues?

None, except other metals. Not all miners mind you, but those for whom its a selling point, and just as a matter of routine for any company that has to produce a mine feasibility study. It might not be in stock exchange disclosures, so look in the presentations to analysts on their websites.

Its true that precious metals have not performed as well as other metals, but consider why:
1. Mining costs have doubled in the last few years - not because of gold & silver mining but because the big iron ore, coal, base metal projects around the world hogged all the geological services and mine consumables, pushing prices up considerably. Well those metals will have softer prices in future because they are demand-based.

2. Strong currencies have undermined the performance of precious metals more than other metals because their prices have not risen so high. Commodity currencies like Australia, South Africa, Brazil, etc have mostly doubled, so thats had a huge impact.

But thats all history. Any softening in the global economy will undermine demand based commodity prices and the currencies along with them, but precious metals will out-perform. I expect gold and silver will fall too if financial institutions are forced to sell hard assets to cover loosing financial positions, but precious metals have yet to have the final play. They will at least double over coming years, and I think even better. And you will also benefit from weaker commodity currencies, and investing in the growth earnings of miners...just another reason to invest in stocks...not physical metal.

Whilst I like Kiyosaki's recommendation I think the timing is a little wrong. Why? Because I think that precious metals will be sold off along with everything else if their is a rapid collapse in asset markets, so its best to sit on cash until precious metals take some direction - that is they break a previous high or low.

The chart above shows silver holding the $11/oz support, but I think if thre is a sell off of assets then silver will be sold off, so better to wait for support in more certain markets because they fell faster than they climb. I can see silver falling as low as $8/oz. But it will eventually go as high as $50/oz.

Yeh I know ...people have been saying it for 50 years....well its happened already in the 1970s and its been on an uptrend since I researched (with WHI Securities) and recommended all metals in 2001. Since then it has been strong...but it will go for another rally.

Silver Commodities Trading/Investing

I have come to appreciate the benefits of commodities trading or investing. Gone are the days when you would buy physical commodities. Using the CMC Plc trading platform (www.cmcplc.com) is one option, but there are others. eg. Saxobank.

By far the best commodity to trade at the moment is silver, though you can always short the other commodities. The only commodities CMC trade are:

1. Spot gold & silver
2. Platinum & palladium futures

The strategy is to trade these commodities off a moving average - I use MAV(simple, 40), MAV(exp, 30). When it pulls back to the MAV(40), I am inclined to take a position. I see silver going to $US20/oz.