Gold & Precious Metals

A Titanic Disaster…….Or What Will Be Blamed When Currencies Sink?

Posted by Byron King - The Daily Reckoning

on Tuesday, 18 September 2012 13:44

THE FIRST is a set of gold-rimmed eyeglasses. Further on, there is a pocket watch stopped at 11:14. Then there is a brown leather suitcase, somewhat worse for the wear. There are stacks of white dishes and racks of dark green bottles. Another display shows brass plumbing fixtures and a gray, steel wrench. And at another stop along the walk one sees a copper and glass engine thermometer. There is a jade rosary, and a man’s boulder hat, of all things, in remarkably fine condition, considering… And a pair of woman’s shoes, made of black leather. Not one shoe, but a pair, recovered from the sea floor beneath 12,000 feet of cold North Atlantic water.

Then there are the coins and paper currency. Gold coins, silver coins, copper. British, American, French. This was real money back then, from a gold standard era. And the paper notes also tell a tale. They are a collection of official British and American treasury promissory notes, and a remarkable amount of scrip from private banks, redeemable in precious metal.

Every note has an annotation at some spot or another, promising to pay to the bearer some quantity of gold or silver. “One Dollar Silver Note,” from a bank in New England, redeemable in an ounce of silver from that institution. Or a “Two Dollar Silver Certificate,” to be paid on demand by the Treasury of the United States of America in, not surprisingly, two ounces of silver. Or “Ten Gold Dollars,” half an ounce of yellow metal in 1912, promised by and intended to be paid to the bearer from the precious gold assets of the Government of the United States.

These artifact paper notes, recovered against all odds from their watery grave, still retain a certain sense of dignity. They do not declare mightily and officiously that they are “legal tender for all debts, public and private.” They do not have to… The notes represent a solemn promise by the issuer that, in return for a person lending a sum of honest money to the bank or government, the issuer of the note will repay an equal sum of precious metal at a time and place of mutual convenience. There is, it seems, a sense of financial humility, respect and national or corporate duty to these documents.

The Titanic exhibit explains that within about two years of the ship sinking, the British and American governments changed the methods by which they permitted currency to be issued. The exhibit does not go into detail, which is understandable. This is a display of artifacts from a sunken ship, not an exposition on monetary history. But it is interesting that the curators would mention it at all.

In late 1913 the US government enacted the Federal Reserve Act, which removed the power to issue monetary notes from private banks and the US Treasury, and gave that power to the newly established Federal Reserve, or the American central bank. And in 1914, Great Britain’s central bank, the Bank of England, went off the gold standard shortly after Britain entered into what became the Great War, now known as World War I.

For the 100 years before this time, the respective values of the British and US currency had held more-or-less steady, excepting a period of inflation during the American Civil War. But after 1914 the value of the respective currencies was set by… well, by a monetary system, for lack of a better term, run by each nation’s respective central bankers.

The idea was to have an “elastic currency,” meaning a currency base that could expand to meet the needs of a dynamic and growing economy, or in the case of Britain, to fight a war that the nation could not afford.

In the ninety or so years since those monetary milestones of 1913 and 1914, both the British pound and the US dollar have lost about 98% of their value due to inflation of the national monetary supplies. That sure makes for one heck of an “elastic currency”, eh?

But because this monetary debasement has happened so slowly — year by year, decade by decade, generation by generation — this decline of the value of national currency has seemed almost a natural phenomenon, an immutable law of nature. This is the way that monetary theory is taught in all of the best schools, and is how all modern monetary systems work, right?

Typically the politicians have demanded, and people have grown to accept, “a little bit” of inflation fostered by the central bank as the price of progress. Except that “a little bit” of inflation over a long time is actually “a lot” of inflation.

Over the long term, the nominal savings of one generation are reduced, in the aggregate, to a pittance. This matters quite a bit when one goes to retire a generation or so after going to work. And in an inflationary environment, valuations of capital become meaningless over the long term, absent using statistical guesses to determine deflation factors.

Keep in mind that savings create capital, and inflation destroys savings, hence destroys capital.

From the standpoint of ethics, it would seem that the people who run the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have a responsibility to their respective citizens to maintain a stable value to their currencies, and not to destroy that value over time. It would seem that the managers of a nation’s currency have a duty to maintain monetary standards, and not to wreck savings and impoverish one generation to benefit another. It would seem so, but apparently this is not how the monetary system works.

By way of comparison, this ethical duty to maintain standards is much the same as the duty of the principals of the White Star Line to design and build a fine ship, appropriate to the hazards of oceanic crossings. And this is much as Captain E.J. Smith had a duty to train his crew and sail his vessel along a track that would bring her safely into the port of destination. But on the night that the Titanic sank, there was a failure of duty by the Captain to sail a safe course, even after an ice warning was received over the radio. And the iceberg, scraping the rivet heads off the steel plating of the Titanic and permitting the sea to flood the ship through hundreds of small penetrations, revealed a flaw in construction. And the sinking revealed the failure of White Star Line fundamentally to design a proper ship, with lifeboats sufficient to the need of passengers and crew in a time of peril.

As fate would have it, J. Bruce Ismay, one of the directors of the White Star Line, survived the Titanic’s sinking by leaping into one of the last lifeboats that dropped from the doomed vessel into the freezing ocean. Later on, Director Ismay was greatly criticized from almost every quarter, because he survived the sinking when over 1,500 others did not. One of the most trenchant critiques of Ismay came from Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, the great historian, strategist and sea power visionary of the US Navy, who reviewed Ismay’s retreat to the lifeboats and his abandonment of hundreds to death by freezing and drowning, and wrote:

“We should be careful not to pervert standards. Witness the talk that the result is due to ‘the system.’ What is a system, except that which individuals have made it and keep it? Whatever weakens the sense of individual responsibility is harmful, and so likewise is all condonation of failure of the individual to meet his responsibility.”

What will the central bankers say in their own defense when the dollar, or the pound, vanishes like the Titanic beneath the sea? Will they simply shrug their shoulders and blame “the monetary system”? What will they say to those doomed souls who are the victims of their failure, and whose lives, communities, nations and cultures are shattered? What will they say as the wreckage of their monetary system slips away and rains down, like the artifacts from the Titanic landing on the dark abyssal plain far below?

Read more: A Titanic Disaster http://dailyreckoning.com/a-titanic-disaster/#ixzz26pwyhDwZ

 

Regards,

Byron King,
for The Daily Reckoning

 

Titanic2

 

Byron King

Byron King is the managing editor of Outstanding Investments and Energy & Scarcity Investor. He is a Harvard-trained geologist who has traveled to every U.S. state and territory and six of the seven continents. He has conducted site visits to mineral deposits in 26 countries and deep-water oil fields in five oceans. This provides him with a unique perspective on the myriad of investment opportunities in energy and mineral exploration. He has been interviewed by dozens of major print and broadcast media outlets including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, MSN Money, MarketWatch, Fox Business News, and PBS Newshour.

 

Special Video Presentation: Urgent Message About Your Net Worth The single, solution-packed book that could… literally… mean the difference between growing wealthy or suffering an ugly, vicious decline in your net worth. Discover how to claim a FREE copy of this book, right here.

 

 

THE WHOLESALE cost of buying gold dipped below $1770 an ounce during Monday morning trading in London, but remained less than ten Dollars below their six-month high hit last Friday, the day after the US Federal Reserve announced a third round of quantitative easing.

Prices for buying silver fell to around $34.50 an ounce this morning – 1.3% off Friday’s high – as stocks and industrial commodities also edged lower and major government bond prices rose.

“Precious metals are for the most part defending the gains they have made in recent days,” says Commerzbank in its morning commodities note.

“Gold is still pretty bullish this week,” agrees Phillip Futures analyst Lynette Tan in Singapore.

“I think gold prices will remain firm and probably test the [$1790] high set in February…buyers are still buying gold, but it seems that profit taking may occur later.”

On New York’s Comex, the so-called speculative net long position across all gold futures and options traders – based on the difference between bullish and bearish contracts – rose to its highest level since February last Tuesday, according to weekly data published each Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The world’s largest gold ETF SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) meantime saw its bullion holdings climb above 1300 tonnes Friday for the first time since August last year.

“We believe the macroeconomic environment for gold is turning more constructive,” says a report from Deutsche Bank.

“We expect that the growth in supply of fiat currencies is an important driver, the low interest rate environment is likely to continue to enhance gold’s attractiveness given the negligible opportunity cost.”

Since the start of the month, both the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve have announced open-ended stimulus measures.

The ECB said it will buy sovereign bonds on the open market “with no ex ante quantitative limits”, while the Fed said it will buy $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities each month until it sees “substantial” improvement in the US labor market, a move generally being recognized as a third round of quantitative easing (QE3).

“People will see commodities as something they want to hold, because they see these moves as inflationary,” says John Stephenson, portfolio manager at First Asset Investment Management in Toronto.

“It’s hugely bullish in the short run, now that all of the central banks seem to be singing from the same hymnal.”

“The precious [metals] complex looks rather good medium to long term,” adds a note from Swiss refiner MKS.

“But after a month and a half rise without any correction, a violent crash for both gold and silver could happen.”

Since the ECB announced its plan on September 6, the Euro has gained around 4% against the Dollar, breaching $1.30 last week for the first time since May following the Fed QE3 announcement.

“While we can easily see the Euro rising further in the next few weeks, to $1.35 or so, we still hold to a $1.15 target over the next 6-12 months,” says this morning’s note from Steve Barrow, head of G10 research at Standard Bank.

Despite recent Euro strength however, the cost of buying gold in Euros remained within 2% of its spot market all-time high during Monday morning’s trading.

European finance ministers meeting in Cyprus over the weekend agreed to postpone a decision on whether to grant Greece more time to meet its austerity commitments until late next month.

Decisions on the creation of a single European banking supervisor were also deferred.

France’s finance minister meantime has defended plans for a 75% tax rate for those who earn more than €1 million a year.

“It’s a strong, patriotic measure,” Pierre Moscovici told RTL radio.

“Those that got very rich over the past period can help in a patriotic way to turn around the country… Lowering the [national] debt is a necessary battle to have our sovereignty from the markets. I don’t want France to be a prisoner of its debt.”

French economic growth is expected to remain “considerably below 1%” next year, Bank of France governor Christian Noyer says in an interview published in Les Echos Monday.

The United States meantime is to complain to the World Trade Organization about China subsidizing car and car part manufacturing, the Financial Times reports.

“The key principle at stake is that China must play by the rules of the global trading system,” a White House spokesman said.

“When it does not, the Obama administration will take action to ensure that American businesses and workers are competing on a level playing field.”

Ben Traynor
BullionVault

 

Gold value calculator   |   Buy gold online at live prices

Editor of Gold News, the analysis and investment research site from world-leading gold ownership service BullionVault, Ben Traynor was formerly editor of the Fleet Street Letter, the UK’s longest-running investment letter. A Cambridge economics graduate, he is a professional writer and editor with a specialist interest in monetary economics. Ben writes and presents BullionVault’s weekly gold market summary on YouTube and can be found on Google+

(c) BullionVault 2012

Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.

The factors that have fuelled gold’s bull market show no signs of going away…

AFTER months of “quanticipation“, the Federal Reserve has finally done it. Ben Bernanke yesterday announced another round of asset purchases.

The much-vaunted third round of quantitative easing (QE3) is now a reality. And this time it’s permanent (or, at least, open-ended), writes Ben Traynor at BullionVault.

First, let’s get the details out of the way:

  • The Fed will buy $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities per month. This policy will continue indefinitely, depending on the state of the economy.
  • The Fed will continue Operation Twist, aimed at lowering longer-term Treasury yields, until the end of the year, while also continue its policy of rolling over maturing mortgage-backed securities. As a result, Fed asset purchases will total around $85 per month between now and the end of the year.
  • Fed policymakers extended their guidance for near zero policy rates to at least mid-2015

As you might expect, gold rallied following the announcement. Euro Gold Prices set a new all-time high above €1359 an ounce at this morning’s London Gold Fix. In Dollar terms though, gold didn’t quite reach this year’s high seen back in February.

Beyond the headline numbers, though, what have we learned from yesterday’s announcement?

Well, for one, yesterday’s move shows Fed policymakers have serious concerns about the state of the US economy, specifically centered around unemployment. Bernanke said the Fed will continue asset purchases until it sees “ongoing sustained improvement in the labor market”.

“There is not a specific number we have in mind,” Bernanke told reporters, “but what we’ve seen in the last six months isn’t it.”

Another thing we learned is that the Fed is treating its 2% inflation target as symmetric, as the Bank of England does, rather than as an upper limit in the style of the European Central Bank.

“Strains in global financial markets continue to pose significant downside risks to the economic outlook,” yesterday’s Federal Open Market Committee statement said.

“The Committee also anticipates that inflation over the medium term likely would run at or below its 2 percent objective.”

This is straight out of the Bank of England playbook. The BoE has repeatedly warned of the risks that inflation could fall below target “over the medium term”, using this argument to justify extensions to its own QE policy even with inflation resolutely above target.

In his New York Times column, Paul Krugman has hailed yesterday’s announcement as the Fed trying “to credibly promise to be irresponsible” as a way of raising inflation expectations – something he advocated for Japan back in the 1990s.

Assuming that is the Fed’s aim, it could prove a dangerous miscalculation. Expectations of higher inflation, once they take hold, are very difficult to dislodge. Be careful what you wish for, and all that.

Nonetheless, one other thing we’ve learned is that negative real interest rates are likely to be with us for a good while yet. The Fed pretty much said so: it expects policy rates to stay near zero for at least three years, while at the same time viewing a fall in inflation below 2% as something best avoided.

This is bad news for those with money in the bank, who have seen interest on their savings fail to keep up with inflation for several years now. This unlikely to change over the much-vaunted “medium term”.

We are reminded of that famous quotation from Keynes: “The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.”

That may be so, but it looks like in the medium term we’ll all be broke.

Getting back to gold, recent developments suggest the environment that saw gold gain more than six-fold in a decade is still very much with us: negative real rates and rising global liquidity. Last week, the European Central Bank announced it will purchase bonds “with no ex ante limit”. Yesterday, the Fed – guardian of the world’s reserve currency – joined them in making a similar open-ended commitment.

The tide looks far from turning…

Ben Traynor, 

BullionVault

 

Since 2005, BullionVault has brought the advantages of the professional wholesale gold market to individual investors, dramatically cutting the cost of investing in gold. To find out more, visit BullionVault today…

Editor of Gold News, the analysis and investment research site from world-leading gold ownership service BullionVault, Ben Traynorwas formerly editor of the Fleet Street Letter, the UK’s longest-running investment letter. A Cambridge economics graduate, he is a professional writer and editor with a specialist interest in monetary economics. Ben writes and presents BullionVault’s weekly gold market summary on YouTube and can be found on 
 

 

Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.


Eric Coffin: Bonanza Discoveries That Will Drive These Gold Stocks

Posted by Eric Coffin via The Gold Report

on Thursday, 13 September 2012 14:23

New deposits and economic triggers will drive gold stocks, says Eric Coffin, the editor of HRA Journal. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Coffin identifies the management characteristics of gold juniors that make money for investors. A successful gold explorer in his own right, Coffin names his picks from the Yukon to the Caribbean.

COMPANIES MENTIONED : ATAC RESOURCES LTD. :COMSTOCK METALS LTD. : EUROMAX RESOURCES LTD. : EVOLVING GOLD CORP. : GOLDQUEST MINING CORP. : KAMINAK GOLD CORP. : KINROSS GOLD CORP. : NORTHERN TIGER RESOURCES INC. : PRECIPITATE GOLD CORP. : PREMIER GOLD MINES LTD. : RESERVOIR MINERALS INC. : SILVERCREST MINES INC.RELATED COMPANIES CANGOLD LIMITED FORTUNA SILVER MINES INC. MAG SILVER CORP. MAJESCOR RESOURCES INC. PERSHING GOLD CORP. RYE PATCH GOLD CORP. UNIGOLD INC.

The Gold Report: Eric, why is there a bear market for metal mining companies in a season of bulls?

Eric Coffin: Post-recession, there was a good bounce for commodity stocks. Two problems have slowed things down during the last year. One was fear of the fiscal cliff as the politicians in Washington argued about raising the debt ceiling. Banks were blowing up in Europe. Most important, weakening numbers out of China scared off a lot of investors, particularly from the base metals. There are simply a lot of people concerned about the economy in general, and, specifically, the growth economies where metals are keys to industrial development.

On the gold and silver side, the real issue is that gold is over $1,700/ounce (oz) and silver is now over $30/oz. It sounds as if I’m being ironic, but I’m not. At the start of this major cycle, gold prices were $300/oz. It was not the price-earnings (P/E) ratio that was determining the value of a lot of mining companies, it was the P/E ratio plus a very large amount added for in-the-ground resources. Goldbugs at the start of this cycle expected gold and silver prices to go up 500%. They were as interested, if not more interested, in the leverage, the “ounces in the ground per share” that gold stocks represented.

I’m not going to assume that gold is going to $10,000/oz. I’d be really happy if it does, but I’m not expecting it. What we are seeing now is that the P/Es for the gold firms are returning to the market average. In the past, gold companies could trade at 80–90 P/E. The earnings part didn’t matter very much. It was all about the amount of gold resources on hand. Now investors are taking a harder look at how much money these firms are actually making. We can’t just assume that gold is going up another 400–500%. So the P/Es have normalized.

Another concern is profit margins. Costs have gone up very rapidly in the mining business. For a long time that was because there was a skills shortage. Part of the reason why we expected this to be a long secular bull market was because we knew how short the industry was on all kinds of skills, material and equipment. The mining sector was not going to turn around and suddenly start producing twice as much copper, zinc or whatever at the same cost. As the price of metals rises, so does the price of a geologist, the price of an engineer, the price of a ball mill.

The situation will improve over time as more professionals are trained and the production capacity of industry suppliers is increased, but this takes time. The final piece of the cost equation for many metals is grade. As the “low hanging fruit” is picked and the industry moves to tougher terrain with less infrastructure and deposits with lower average grade, the cost of production rises. While I’m not a big believer in things like “peak copper” (at least not any time soon), supply is very much a function of price. If the world wants ever increasing amounts of metals it will have to pay up and pay the mining industry to supply them. The days of cheap metals, in most cases, are over.

TGR: You observed recently in HRA Journal that the currently depressed junior gold explorer market is showing signs of life. Can you explain that?

EC: One reason is that the market is running out of sellers. People who wanted out of gold equities are largely gone; there is a huge amount of money on the sideline. That puts in a bottom but doesn’t cause a turnaround. I think the spark that gets the juniors moving again, as it has in many past cycles, is new discoveries. We haven’t seen many discoveries that grabbed the market’s attention in the last couple of years.

Exciting discovery stories are critical to the junior mining sector. People need to be reminded of why they buy these high risk stocks. Investors do not buy a $0.10/share junior as a widow or an orphan stock, they buy it because they are swinging for the fences. It’s hard for investors to talk themselves into swinging for the fences unless they are seeing others hitting one out of the park.

A couple of recent home runs have generated a bit more liquidity in the market, but not as much as I’d like to see. The summer is always slow. The real test is going to come in the next month or two. However, we are starting to see financings close again. And companies that have done well off of drill discoveries are getting big increases in stocks prices and, critically, we are seeing more of these companies maintaining higher prices; that generates money that gets redeployed.

TGR: Let’s talk about the discoveries.

EC: GoldQuest Mining Corp. (GQC:TSX.V) is a big win for me. David and I had specifically advised people to buy GoldQuest for its drill program and then it made an amazing blind discovery in the Dominican Republic. The best drill hole at this new zone, Romero, is on the order of 235 meters (m) of almost 8 grams/ton (g/t) gold and 1.5% copper. It has reported seven holes in a small area, but doesn’t understand the geometry yet. It started out with small stepouts in an area measuring about 100x100m and is now starting larger stepouts. Not only are the grades strong, but also the zone is thick. GoldQuest is looking at 200–250m+ intercepts, and all of the holes have bottomed in the zone. The small area drilled should contain over a million ounces and it’s still wide open. That is a pretty impressive discovery, and GoldQuest stock reacted accordingly. It was $0.07/share when it announced the first drill hole. It’s about $1.60/share now. It has raised $20 million in the last month and a half, most of that at $1.25/share.

GoldQuest will drill the heck out of this. It has two drill rigs going. There’s a third one in customs, which should be onsite in a week, and a fourth rig on the way. And, the success of this target increases the value of its other targets. For instance, it has 40 kilometers (km) of contiguous holdings covering a rock formation called the Tireo Volcanics. With cash from the new discovery in hand, GoldQuest can and will up its exploration budget on that set of properties that have several other early stage discoveries in addition to Romero.

TGR: Are you following any particular gold miners in North America?

EC: In the Yukon, ATAC Resources Ltd. (ATC:TSX.V) is putting out really good holes. Kaminak Gold Corp. (KAM:TSX.V) is also putting out good holes, although it is not putting them out as often as I would like. It has obviously gone to the whole batching idea.

I also really like the look of Comstock Metals Ltd. (CSL:TSX.V). It is operating on the other side of the Yukon River from the Golden Saddle discovery. Golden Saddle was discovered by Underworld Resources Inc. (UW:TSX) four years ago, which kicked off the whole Yukon area play. It was subsequently taken out by Kinross Gold Corp. (K:TSX; KGC:NYSE). Kinross hasn’t published a new formal gold resource number, but the jungle telegraph says it’s between 2.25–2.5 Moz.

Comstock has the same rocks and very similar mineralization on the other side of the Yukon River, the north side. It is about 15 km away. It put out a very strong 75m trench about a month and a half ago, averaging 3.75 g/t. Last week, Comstock put out another set of trench results, extending the zone to almost 400m of strike length on surface. The average thickness is probably 70–80m. It compares quite favorably to Underworld’s discovery. That was followed a few days later by the announcement of a drill start. This is in the far North. Just how much drilling gets completed this fall is weather dependent but based on those trenches, it’s a strong-looking target.

TGR: Are there other explorers in northern Canada that have your eye?

EC: On the opposite corner of the Yukon, there are really high-grade numbers—up to hundreds of grams per tonne gold—coming from Northern Tiger Resources Inc.’s (NTR:TSX.V) 3Ace project this year. The company drilled several short holes in this new one but hasn’t released results yet. The main question is how big is this thing? The deposit will have to be thick to get the market excited, but the grades are high enough that the tonnage could be small and yet still prove to be profitable.

TGR: What about in the U.S.? Any names there?

EC: I have liked Premier Gold Mines Ltd. (PG:TSX) for several years. It has developed nice land positions in Nevada and in Ontario. It’s a good story at many levels, and it has one of the best management groups in the junior sector. Premier has several very good advanced projects in Ontario and Nevada where it’s growing resources with ongoing exploration. It’s a very solid stock with a wide following.

Evolving Gold Corp. (EVG:TSX; EVOGF:OTCQX; EV7:FSE) is drilling a project in the same area of Nevada as Premier. It has put out some good holes and some not-so-good holes. It needs to drill a range of deep holes to figure out the geometry. But it definitely has a Carlin zone. And in the Carlin mineralization, the gold tends to be very fine grained. It requires a lab assay. But there’s no real shortcut for getting the wedge holes done in order to figure out which direction to chase the zone and determine if the one is large enough to justify larger drill programs.

TGR: How does a smart investor in gold juniors separate the wheat from the chaff?

EC: It’s wise to focus on a geographic area that’s already generated a lot of good news. If a company is looking for a bulk tonnage open-pit-type deposit, I look at the target size to be sure there is enough scale potential. I don’t have a problem with the high-grade ore. Good high grade deposits can be very profitable even though the market tends to focus on the big low grade systems. But to get the market’s attention for an underground operation, there needs to be a minimum of 6–8 g/t and, ideally, more than 10 g/t in intercepts.

In many areas you can make money on lower grades than that if there is good thickness but the market tends to ignore grades below 10 grams unless they are at least several meters thick. With bulk tonnage, you can get away with 1 g/t or 1.5 g/t, but for drilling at those grades, you want to see 60, 80, 100m drill intercepts. The property has to look strong from the outset, because the company has to keep raising money. That being the case, one looks for a management group with a strong brand and a track record of success—both in market terms and in technical terms.

Things can get difficult even when a discovery has been made if management isn’t able to get the market to take notice. Having access to capital is huge for a junior. It’s even more critical when the market is weak as it has been the past 18 months. When the market’s great, everybody’s happy, people will say “yes” to anything and it’s much easier to raise money. But when the market is weak, management must be able to convince people to write a check. Of the 1,500 or so junior companies, there may be 100 that can do that in this type of market on non-dilutive terms and no more.

TGR: How’s it going with Precipitate Gold Corp. (PRG:TSX.V), which is in both the Dominican Republic and the Yukon?

EC: I’m pretty happy with it. By way of disclosure, as you know, Precipitate was founded by my late brother, David, and me and our friend Scott Gibson. We were very fortunate to be joined from the start by such a strong board and management team. Adrian Fleming is the chairman; he ran Underworld before it was taken out and has huge business credibility. The board includes Quinton Hennigh, a good friend and one of the smartest geologists I’ve ever met. Both Adrian and Quinton know how to talk to the market. Our friend Gary Freeman is also on the board. Gary is a great financier. David and I had been involved with him in the early development of Pediment Gold Corp. (PEZ:TSX; PEZGF:OTCBB;P5E:FSE), which was taken out by Argonaut Gold Inc. (AR:TSX). Darryl Cardey, who was the chairman of Underworld, is also on the Precipitate board of directors. Darcy Krohman, another longtime friend who has the unusual combination of dual professional standings both as a P. Geo geologist and a CA, is the president.

Due to its very credible management team, Precipitate was able to do a $0.40/share initial public offering on early-stage, Yukon properties in May with no warrants. Believe me, that wasn’t a piece of cake. People bought the stock as a bet on management. Though we like the Yukon projects, it was no secret everyone involved with the company was, and still is, on constant lookout for projects that would be accretive and add value to the company.

As it happens, just before Precipitate listed, GoldQuest made its discovery in the Dominican Republic. I’m very good friends with Bill Fisher and Julio Espaillat, who run it. I’ve always liked that belt of rocks. And it is not an exaggeration to say that GoldQuest and Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI:NYSE) invented the Tireo as an exploration destination. They did the regional work that focused on those rocks and the belt has generated several discoveries in its short 10 year exploration history. If Precipitate had said six months ago, “Hey, we have a property next to GoldQuest,” most people would have said, “Who the hell is GoldQuest?” Now, it’s a different story.

As soon as its first drill hole was announced, I was trying to find projects in the right rocks for Precipitate. That is not easy to do because the belt was largely tied up even before the Romero discovery, but we were lucky to get a large concession that has the right geology along its eastern side bordering Goldquest. This is early stage exploration but it’s a great address and Romero is already looking as if it could be a world class discovery after only seven drill holes.

TGR: Let’s pull out and look at the macroeconomic level for a minute. What kinds of economic triggers are likely to affect gold equities positively or otherwise in the foreseeable future?

EC: For the next three months, it’s central banks, central banks and central banks. Everybody is expecting Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to kick in Qualitative Easing 3 (QE3). I’m slightly less convinced, but I’m not going to complain if he turns on the printing press. The latest monthly employment report in the U.S. was quite weak so that may be the trigger for a QE announcement. What Bernanke said at Jackson Hole brought the gold price back up through $1,700/oz. We are seeing similar indications out of the European Central Bank (ECB). Mario Draghi is telling the European countries that are anti-stimulus, “I’m going to do it with you, or without you!” And Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, who hasn’t exactly been a proponent of bond buying, is now saying they have to stimulate. It looks like we could have stereo printing presses humming along on both sides of the Atlantic before long.

Perversely, weak employment numbers and weak purchasing manager index numbers help precious metals. Weak economic indicators convince traders that Bernanke and the ECB are going to have to pull the trigger. On the base metals side, the easing could have the opposite impact, with one exception. If we continue to see weak numbers out of Beijing, the traders will think that Beijing is going to stimulate, too. But not with bond buying. The Chinese can simply loosen reserve requirements for the banks. They hold trillions of dollars in foreign reserves. Unlike Washington and most of the debtor countries in Europe, China can simply start writing checks. It, too, has been putting out weaker numbers and making more noise about stimulating. China does have slightly higher inflation, which makes things trickier, but I expect it to step up stimulus toward year-end as the next generation of Communist Party leadership is sworn in.

TGR: What effect would QE3 have on mining interests, generally?

EC: It will help. QE3 will weaken the U.S. dollar. It will cause traders to buy treasuries all the way up and down the yield curve, thereby lowering the yields. In the last couple of weeks, the U.S. dollar index has dropped a couple of points, which is a fairly big move. As it moves lower, gold and silver prices in U.S. dollars will strengthen. Then we will see better numbers in the U.S. as businesses gain confidence and start hiring. Those hiring decisions are being held back right now because managers aren’t comfortable with the slow growth rate. Virtually all traded commodities are priced in U.S. dollars, so it should help them all, though precious metals will get the biggest, quickest boost.

TGR: How will monetary easing affect mining in Mexico?

EC: In Mexico, the peso is relatively weak by historic standards, which helps with mining costs. It has good mining infrastructure and good mining legislation. It doesn’t have any real royalties to speak of. You don’t get a lot of surprises there. However, areas of the country are bloody dangerous; that’s the one thing that has held Mexico back recently. The drug cartels have scared people out of some areas. Nobody really knows who is calling the shots. You certainly don’t get the impression that it is the Federales; the drug cartels do whatever they want. But people more or less know where the growing is and where the drug routes are, so they stay out of those areas. I’d like to think that crime is not going to be a long-term problem. There are still plenty of areas in Mexico that work out fine for miners.

You must have agreements with the local ejitos, however. Although the ejitos don’t own the mineral rights, they do have surface rights and they have local political power. So you need to sit down, talk to the locals and make sure that everybody is happy, because an angry ejito can really make your life miserable. There are some ejitos who just don’t want development. And when the locals don’t want you, there’s just no point in bothering. All that said, it’s a good country with lots of good geology and plenty of recent discoveries. If the government can get the crime issue under control, I don’t doubt the high level of mining investment would continue and probably grow again.

TGR: Are there any other companies that you think are hot?

EC: I’d keep an eye on Reservoir Minerals Inc. (RMC:TSX.V). Its joint venture with Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX:NYSE) is pulling some amazing drill holes in Serbia. It just put out the second one today—the copper equivalent was almost 10% through 160m. That’s a heck of a drill intersection. Freeport is not fooling around. It is doing big stepouts. It wants to know right away if it’s the real thing and already has four drill rigs at work.

At a more advanced level, I like EurOmax Resources Ltd. (EOX:TSX.V). It is in several countries in Eastern Europe, including Serbia. It has a new management group that came directly out of European Goldfields Ltd. (EGU:TSX; EGU:AIM), which was taken out about a year ago for about $1.5 billion. These guys have huge credibility, especially with European institutions. Euromax is drilling to expand Ilovitza, a copper-gold porphyry in Macedonia. It has a couple of nice projects that have gold resources on them, but there is room for some more gain simply by the current management group going around and telling the story. Management views the asset set as very comparable to that of European Goldfields Ltd. (EGU:TSX; EGU:LSE) but with one tenth the current market value.

Speaking of Mexico, if you’re interested in a production level story we like SilverCrest Mines Inc. (SVL:TSX.V; SVLC:NYSE.MKT). We have followed the company since inception. I have a very high regard for the management team, which has been delivering on time and on budget for years. SilverCrest is generating nice profits from its Santa Elena gold-silver mine in Sonora and plans are in the works to add a mill to this heap-leach operation and start mining deeper parts of the system and double the production rate by 2014. SilverCrest is also drilling its La Joya bulk tonnage silver-base metal project in Durango. There should be an updated resource estimate by the end of the year and it looks like it’s going to be big, probably close to 200 Moz silver equivalent. SilverCrest has gotten a lot of traction as gold and silver prices jumped recently but if they keep going up, the company should too.

Lastly, HRA is offering a free report for your Gold Report readers. It’s actually our latest HRA Journal,which discusses in more detail some of the companies that we have covered in this interview, such as Precipitate Gold, Comstock Metals and GoldQuest. To access the report for FREE, all you need to do is sign up through our page at HRAdvisory and you’ll automatically receive a copy of the Journal via email.

TGR: Thanks, Eric.

EC: You’re welcome.

Eric Coffin is the editor of the HRA (Hard Rock Analyst) family of publications. He has a degree in corporate and investment finance and extensive experience in merger and acquisitions and small-company financing and promotion. For many years, he tracked the financial performance and funding of all exchange-listed Canadian mining companies and has helped with the formation of several successful exploration ventures. Coffin was one of the first analysts to point out the disastrous effects of gold hedging and gold loan-capital financing in 1997. He also predicted the start of the current secular bull market in commodities based on the movement of the U.S. dollar in 2001 and the acceleration of growth in Asia and India. Coffin can be reached at hra@publishers-mgmt.com or the website www.hraadvisory.com.

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DISCLOSURE: 
1) Peter Byrne of The Gold Report conducted this interview. He personally and/or his family own shares of the following companies mentioned in this interview: None.
2) The following companies mentioned in the interview are sponsors of The Gold Report: Comstock Metals Ltd., Premier Gold Mines Ltd., Evolving Gold Corp., Precipitate Gold Corp., Argonaut Gold Inc. and SilverCrest Mines Inc.Streetwis Reports does not accept stock in exchange for services. Interviews are edited for clarity.
3) Eric Coffin: I personally and/or my family own shares of the following companies mentioned in this interview: Precipitate Gold Corp., Comstock Metals Ltd., Kaminak Gold Corp., Goldquest Mining Corp., EurOmax Resources Ltd., Reservoir Minerals Inc., SilverCrest Mines Inc., Northern Tiger Resources Inc. and Argonaut Gold Inc. I personally and/or my family are never paid by any of the companies followed by HRA. I was not paid by Streetwise Reports for participating in this story.

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Chief market analyst at John Thomas Financial provides technical analysis on the current state of commodities.

Ed Note: If you prefer to watch this interview on a 13.23 minute video click HERE

Mike Norman, Hard Assets Investor (Norman): Hello everybody, and welcome to HardAssetsInvestor.com. I’m Mike Norman, your host. Today my guest is Wayne Kaufman, chief market analyst at John Thomas Financial. Wayne, thanks very much for coming on the show.

Wayne Kaufman, chief market analyst, John Thomas Financial (Kaufman): Thanks for inviting me.

Norman: You’re welcome. Now, you’re a technician. You look at the markets through the lens of technical analysis. Give us your outlook now on the commodity markets, based on your technical analysis.

Kaufman: Right now, in commodity markets, there’s some very, very interesting things going on. I do classic charting analysis, looking at different timeframes daily, weekly, monthly. In addition, I look at other aspects of commodities, like there’s something called the Commitment of Traders report. And that’s put out every week by the CFTC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. And they break down the positions of three groups. You have what are called the commercials—these are the people or companies that actually own the underlying asset.

Norman: Right, that transact in the actual business of that commodity.

Kaufman: Correct. And they’re considered the “smart money.” Then they have what are called the large speculators. Those are big hedge funds. They’re just speculating. And then you have the third group, which is the small speculators. That’s the average guy who might decide to trade some futures. They are considered the “dumb money.”

Norman: So are we really looking more at the commercials, the smart money, and the small speculators—the dumb money? Or how much now of a factor have the big hedge funds and speculators become? Because in the past, it’s more or less been, What are the hedgers doing? And, What are the small speculators doing? And you’d like to be on the side of the hedgers.

Kaufman: That’s correct. I would say most of the time, we’re looking at what the commercials, what the smart money is doing. But when you see the other guys at extreme levels, you want to go the other way.

Norman: So they’re a good contrarian indicator.

Kaufman: That was a great question. And that’s exactly right.

Norman: So looking at the landscape now, in some markets—for example, metals or oil—what are the commercials doing? Are they giving us any signals right now as to maybe upcoming market moves?

Kaufman: Well right now, the most interesting area that I’m watching is gold, because gold has made, on the charts, a nice move. It’s broken back above its 200-day moving average for the first time in a while. It really had a nice breakout on the charts. Commercials are usually short. So the thing you want to do is see the degree of short.

Norman: Right.

Kaufman: So, for a multimonth period, they had a very small short position, which meant they were bullish on gold. Well, now that gold’s actually broken out, they are very rapidly going short, or a much greater degree short. So that’s a conflict.

…..read page 2 HERE Full Article HERE