Gold & Precious Metals

The BULL MARKET in gold is back, reckons Dr. Steve Sjuggerud, writing in his Daily Wealth email.

Now is the perfect moment to Buy Gold. Sentiment is still negative; indeed, a growing section of the investment world hates gold. And we have a hint of an uptrend.

This is exactly what we wait for.
 
In short, things are getting “less bad” in gold. Based on history, I believe we could see enormous gains over the next few months. And our True Wealth Systems computers tell us it’s time to Buy Gold.
 
As my True Wealth Systems subscribers know, we track gold two ways. Our first “Gold in Currencies” system tests gold versus four of the major world currencies. The idea is simple. We want to own gold in a bull market. But what is a gold bull market? 

You might hear people say, “It’s not a bull market in gold… It’s simply a bear market in the Dollar.” You see, if the US Dollar is crashing against other currencies, it’s likely also going down in terms of gold. So it looks like gold is in a bull market. But what if gold is falling in terms of the Euro or Yen while it’s rising against the Dollar? That’s not a gold bull market.

So what is a bull market in gold? 
 
One simple definition is: When gold is going up in terms of all the world’s most important currencies, it’s a bull market in gold. 
 
We used this definition to come up with a simple system for gold. We tested the idea on four major currencies – the US Dollar, Euro, British Pound, and Japanese Yen.

If the average price of gold is up in all four currencies versus the previous month…the Buy Gold. Repeat the next month. That’s it.
 
I know it sounds too simple, but it works. We want to own gold when this system says “buy”. We’ve tested the idea on 40-plus years of data. The results are astonishing.

Take a look at this chart from the most recent True Wealth Systems

sjuggerud13vii

Based on history, buying a double-long gold fund when this system says “buy” is good for 41.4% annualized returns. 
 
Yes, that’s right. This system returns over 41% a year when it flashes “buy”. 
 
Importantly, these signals are somewhat rare. Our computers say “buy” less than one-third of the time. Meaning, on average, we’ll only get about four buy signals every year.
 
And right now, the True Wealth Systems computers tell us now is the time to Buy Gold and ride it higher.

The thing is, we still don’t have the uptrend, based on our “Gold Uptrend” system. I’m not concerned, though – that system is a bit slow to signal. Our “Gold in Currencies” signal can be a great “early sign” of a new uptrend in gold.

In short, based on our historical testing, we could be at the brink of a major breakout in gold, but without a confirmed uptrend as yet. Now, I pored over the data and found an incredible result…

In 40-plus years of testing, we’ve seen six MAJOR gold bull trades. (That doesn’t sound like many. But remember, gold went down, consistently, between 1980 and 2000.) Our “Gold in Currencies” system said “buy” before our “Gold Uptrend” system did at the beginning of every trade except one. (In that case, they signaled at the same time.) 
 
In these five cases, our “Gold in Currencies” system signaled “buy” one to three months before the “official” uptrend kicked off. However, being a few months early can “juice” our long-term gains.

The average return on our five gold uptrend trades was 110%. That’s an incredible return. However, by following our “Gold in Currencies” system into the trade a few months early, we’re able to increase our average return to 133%.

Importantly, every one of these trades was MORE successful because of following the currency system in early.
 
Today, we could be on the verge of another major move in gold. Of course, we can’t know if this is the case. But simply based on history, we want to own the yellow metal when our “Gold in Currencies” system says “Buy Gold“. Historically, it’s good for 41.4% annualized returns, regardless of predicting a new uptrend.

You get the idea – right now is a great time to Buy Gold. It is still a bit hated, and we could be on the brink of a major uptrend.

Get the safest gold at the lowest prices using world #1 for physical ownership – off-risk for anyone else’s financial performance – BullionVault

Steve Sjuggerud13 Jul ’12

Former stock-broker, mutual-fund vice-president and hedge-fund advisor Dr. Steve Sjuggerud is the founder and editor of True Wealth. Launched in 2001 and now one of America’s best-followed newsletters for private investors, True Wealth also provides free analysis and ideas in the Daily Wealth email service.

What’s Coming: Inflate or Die

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Russell: Years ago I coined a phrase that described the US’s predicament. The phrase was “Inflate or Die”. As far as I’m concerned, inlfate or die is even more to the point today. Here’s why. The US possesses 8,133 tons of gold, or more than three time the amound o gold held by any other nation (Germany is second with 3, 396 tons of Gold).

Have you ever wondered why the US hangs on to its gold like grim death? And at the same time the US talks down gold? Have you wonderred why the US appears (like China) to be encouraging is citizens to buy, hold, and accumulated gold? Why is the US government distributing gold coins to Americans? Why did the US Government come out wih a new Buffalo solid gold coin and advertise that coin widely?

…find out why HERE

Exclusive Grandich on The Resource Mkt, European Crisis & Shorting Bonds

via Bull Market Thinking: For those who don’t know, over the last 25 years Peter is one of a few people in the world to have correctly called major market tops and bottoms—warning investors of the 1987 top, the 2007 top, and the 2009 bottom—within days of their actual nominal peaks and bottoms. During the interview, when asked about the most impactful item in the marketplace for investors to be aware of right now, Peter said, “The onoing crisis in Europe grips the markets on a day to day and almost on an hour to hour basis…there’s still somewhat of an expectation…that there will be a QE3 in earnest…We’re seeing just a dramatic slowdown in all areas of the world now, places like China that was once seemingly insulated from the world slowdown, is no longer the case.”

When asked about his thoughts on the mining share market, Peter said, “The further you go down into the food chain of the resource market, the uglier it’s been…it’s hard to imagine it, because unlike other declines…the metal prices are pretty much where they’ve been on average the last year, the general equity markets have not sold off in a big way—there’s nothing unusual happening in the metals and mining industry…yet as we go down that food chain from major producers to explorers, we see the damage acute.”

In regards to his extensive background and experience in the junior resource market, and whether or not this is just another “typical” down cycle he’s become accustomed too, Peter responded that, “The lack of sleep and the aggravation that has come with the territory, as someone who makes a livelihood in working with the juniors—it’s not fun to almost every day read hate-mail—I like to joke and say that’s from my family, let alone my readers! But the bottom line is…since the venture exchange was created about ten years ago, it’s gone through something like 7 or 8, or 9 boom and bust cycles. One thing that is familiar is when we’re at this bust side of it, we have a feeling or a sense of hopelessness, that’s [it’s]never going to reboundagain, and ‘How are these $.20 cent stocks ever going back to a dollar?’ [type of attitude]. But during the last ones [cycles] it did—[but] it took several years.”

He further added that, “This one is a little bit different, because it really came out of left field. It really wasn’t part of something that we can point to in the past as I noted earlier and said, ‘Ah-ha, now you can see why the market has come off in the way that it did’, and I think the shock of it has left people dazed.”

On the concept of the coming American debt crisis, and the idea of shorting 10 year US government bonds ahead of rising interest rates, Peter said,“Europe has been a few years ahead of us in the debt crisis. No matter what anybody wants to think, America is no better off from a debt level [perspective], than most of the European countries that are going through the crisis…Once the European position looks like it’s past it’s worse, the focus I believe will come to the United States, and the realization will be, ‘We’re as every bit as bad as Greece, Italy, and the others’,  and then the bond market no matter how slow the economy is, no matter how much the fed is printing, will get hit, and get hit very hard and interest rates will actually rise dramatically—something that people just can’t see happening with such a slow economy.”

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With the LIBOR manipulation scandal and the collapse of commodity brokers MF Global and PFG Best, what is the average investor to do?

Lauren Lyster discusses the answer in a Capital Account interview with Simon Mikhailovich, co-manager of Ediesis Capital.

The topic is “Death of Price Signals and the Birth of a Faith-Based Financial System

Link if video does not play: Birth of a Faith-Based Financial System

The entire interview is worth a complete play. The key portion starts right around the 21:30 mark in which Mikhailovich explains:

          

The financial system is so interconnected and so highly correlated, different asset classes that deemed to be uncorrelated or low-correlated, have become highly-correlated and are essentially all sitting in one systemic basket. 

The way to address the problem is to look for baskets that are not in the financial system. You have to look for physical assets, hard assets, that are not financial instruments, not only the assets themselves are not in the financial system, but the way you own them is not related to the financial system. 

In other words, direct physical ownership of non-financial assets. … The main one is gold. 

Physical gold is the answer because gold is the most liquid, most ubiquitous material, with a worldwide market.

It should owned physically outside the financial system and hopefully with geographic diversification so you can assess liquidity during tough times. We have started a fund to enable people to do just that.

Hold Physical Gold Outside the Financial System

 

To escape the “faith-based initiative” physical gold is the answer.

Mikhailovich proposes one way. Taking physical possession is another,Goldmoney is a third.

I believe a portion of one’s assets belongs in physical gold. What portion depends on many things, including comfort level of holding gold and ability to not panic in strong corrections.

As noted in previous posts: For the sake of full disclosure, my physical precious metals holdings are now entirely at GoldMoney and I have an affiliate relationship with them.

If anyone wants information about GoldMoney or investing in physical gold and silver in general, please Email Mish: MikeShedlock@Gmail.Com

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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Libor Pains: The Next Shoe Drops

 We have now had the next financial shoe drop. The global LIBOR probe is now a risk-on play. LIBOR stands for London Interbank Offered Ratei. It is a rate set by the 16 largest banks. Libor is used as a benchmark for $360 trillion in global securities. Yes, I said “global” and “trillion.” 
It appears that as far back at 2007 (well before the July 2008 advent of the Great Credit Crisis) ii the New York Federal Reserve bankiii seemed to know that there were irregularities (underreporting) of the LIBOR rate that could benefit the big banks. A few days ago (July 7, 2012) Barclay’s CEO Robert Diamond stepped down after conceding that price fixing relative to the LIBOR was involved. It appears that the British regulatory authorities may have known and / or been supportive. 
Yesterday, Bloomberg noted, 
“Barclays Plc Chief Executive Officer Robert Diamond to quit last week after the U.K.’s second-biggest lender was fined a record 290 million pounds ($450 million) for attempting to rig interest rates. At least a dozen banks are being investigated for manipulating Libor.” 
The international banking system, comprised now of banks “too big to fail,” is now under scrutiny for price fixing. The Senate Banking Committee will question both Fed Chief Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Geithner on what they knew and when they knew it. The House Financial Services Committee is also seeking information relative to Libor price fixing. There are many issues that continue to impact confidence in the global financial system. Peregrine Financial filed for bankruptcy this AM. Client accounts in the commodity firm have been frozen in this reprise of MF Global. Peregrine’s founder Russell Wasendorff attempted suicide earlier this week. 
The litany of detritus goes on, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers, Bank America, MF Global, Barclay’s and most recently Peregrine Financial. Even J.P. Morgan got caught on the wrong side of the futures market with a $2 to $4 billion trading loss aggravated by its own attempt to sell the trade. CEO Jamie Dimon has testified to Congress on how JPM’s risk management failed. 
These events will overwhelm market liquidity, the return to smooth functioning of the world’s banking system and by implication the capital markets. In other words, at some point, there may be a systemic effect. This AM the plight of Greece seems to be a mere footnote in the maelstrom. 
Perhaps more important, banks have been made even “too much bigger to fail.” Increased regulation is on the way. It will be poorly thought out. Nevertheless it is coming. 

While the global banking system is scrutinized by politicians, the deleveraging process, at least in the consumer sector, is proceeding slowly and clearly retarding global consumption. The IMF forecasts consumption to grow at a meager 2.2% pace in the U.S., the world’s leading consuming nation. 
The following chart from the Economist (World Economy: The Great Deleveraging Race, July 3 2012). You can see the bleak history of private global consumption from 2007 through 2011 in 5 specific countries. This data is taken from an IMF studyiv. The Economist noted, 
The study found that housing busts and recessions in rich countries lasted longer, and had a greater negative impact on the affected economies, if “preceded by larger run-ups in household debt. These recessions tended to see larger reductions in real GDP and private consumption, higher unemployment, and reduced economic activity for “at least five years.” 
The IMF forecast a 2.2% compound growth rate for private consumption in the U.S. between 2012 and 2016. This forecast is based on more debt write downs, restructuring and payment smoothing programs here in the U.S. a little better than other countries because of government intervention in the mortgage and student loan debt markets. 
This resurfaces the thorny issue of “moral hazard” and “too big to fail” in the banking system. It also brings “big government” intrusion into the picture once again. The U.S. financial system, comprised of banking, capital and commodity markets, is clearly in limbo today. Zero interest rates cannot last forever and they are deleterious to investors. Commodities are under pressure as a flight to the dollar buoys that currency. 
In 2007 / 2009 the system was saved from self-destruction by massive injections of government debt (ultimately taxpayer liabilities). Today it is operating in neutral and further deleveraging must now have a direct impact on the system. It will be the lender (financial system), borrower (consumer) or taxpayer (citizen) who must realize the forced deleveraging of the system. 
There is no easy way out of 60 years of excess leverage in the U.S. economy. This is not your father’s economic crisis but one of a very different mettle, in a very different time. 

What about Discovery our foremost investment theme? You must select projects and companies that will come to fruition quickly, are currently cash flowing or will begin cash flowing in the near term and those not requiring massive capital infusions. For the current banking system and the capital markets this is perhaps the most ominous minefield a real risk on play and one to be avoided at all costs.
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