Following The Gold Stocks Leaders As The Fed Prints

Gold stocks have led the market for a year, and with economic deceleration and Fed policy response that leadership looks to continue [edit: today’s ‘in the bag’ bounce-back Jobs report does little to alter the economic deceleration theme]

We have been on a bullish gold mining view for over a year now. Over that time there have been three interruptions, the downward-biased consolidation from August to November 2019, the flash crash (and very constructive gap-filling mission) in March and most recently the pullback that logically began in May as broad stock market relief started to fan out to more and more momentum chasers who’d finally gotten the hint that the Fed means to devalue the US currency (in competition to a degree with its global counterparts seeking to do the same), making cash a non-viable investment position (other than for risk management to the bullish asset market atmosphere).

The daily chart of HUI shows a successful support test, purely up trending moving averages, all gaps filled but the breakaway gap (a ‘breakaway’ does not need to fill any time soon as it changes or reasserts a trend; there is also an old gap from 2016 near 100 that we need not worry at this time), RSI now positive and trending up above its EMA 20, MACD triggered up and positive and neither of them showing overbought readings. Ah, the beauty of a routine correction within an uptrend. All systems on this daily chart are technically ‘go’.

Gold Stocks - HUI

What’s more, the HUI/SPX ratio is now on an uninterrupted 1-year uptrend. With the come-lately players (institutions, hedge funds, black boxes, Ma ‘n Pa and knee-jerking herds of all stripes) having moved on to perceived greener pastures due to the broad stock market’s May-June outperformance the gold miners are again taking leadership. Continue reading "Following The Gold Stocks Leaders As The Fed Prints"

Gold Sector Correction Is Maturing

Gold Stock Seasonal Average

The HUI Gold Bugs index has over the last 2 decades (encompassing both bull and bear markets) tended to bottom in July per stockcharts.com's data for the index. A seasonal average is not a directive, but it is a (+/-) guide to be factored. Last year gold stocks bottomed in May as we caught what would be a violent upswing. This year I expect the low to be in June or July.

Why Gold?

As the stock market’s broad relief rally lumbers on, drawing the ire of bears that think it should be otherwise, a chorus of dissenting voices is blaming legions of shut-in Millennials and their Robinhood trading accounts for the excess. Maybe that plays a small part.

But here I’ll repeat that the Fed is balls-out printing money (really funny munny), manipulating Treasury and Corporate bonds and stating that it will have virtually no limits in this MMT (I would turn around MMT to call it what it actually is, TMM or Total Market Manipulation). They can give it a fancy name like Modern Monetary Theory but by any other name, it is chicanery and a scam that society will suffer the fallout from someday.

They are cheapening the munny units in order to give the appearance of rising asset (especially stock asset) units. Say it again… “they are cheapening the munny units in order to give the appearance of rising asset units.”

Hence, gold. The shiny rock, the bullion, the anchor to monetary sanity. In this surreal monetary realm, it is something real.

The goal of investing in or trading the gold mining sector is to capitalize on the desperate actions of monetary and fiscal policymakers vs. gold’s stability. Last week we covered a lot of details: Gold Stock Correction and Upcoming Opportunity. No need to repeat the details. People who know how to play this sector have been patiently managing the correction (whether that means selling into it, buying during it, being psychologically prepared for it, etc.) and planning for its end.

We keep a long list of quality miners, explorers, and royalty charts updated every week in NFTRH for this very outcome; an end to the correction and the next phase of gold’s bull market, which it is consolidating now, per this daily futures chart. If the negative RSI divergence does not resolve into a sharp drop soon it is going to then be big-time fuel for what could be a hysterical run-up to the 1940 target and possibly beyond.

Gold had become over-loved by financial refugees in March. They are now buying stocks again.* That is perfect because they should not be aboard the next phase. Their role will again be too knee-jerk and chase later on. Despite the consolidation since March, the daily chart (via TradingView) shows a completely intact situation at the up-trending 50-day average.

gold

Gold/SPX Ratio

I’ll leave you with one final chart. There has been a reason gold has underperformed the stock market since the terror of early spring. That reason is because cyclical asset markets are and have been on a massive sentiment relief rally and sentiment will do what it will do in the short-term. Just remember that simple fact when you see the inevitable rationale like this that certain interests will try to feed you: Here Come the Golden Ghost Stories.

Gold/SPX has done a great job of taking out the excess while remaining intact. 5-year chart…

gold spx ratio

The Not So Great Reset

Lunatics far and wide talk about something called “The Great Reset” but that too is tin foil, whether aspects of it are true or not. It does not help your market management to have that crap in your head. Instead, let’s boil down the picture to the gold sector and realize that as the terror-stricken sentiment of March and April is being reset, so to is the over-enthusiastic sentiment in the gold sector.

The next bull phase should be arriving before long.

* I have been selectively long the stock market since March as well, but very aware of the gathering risks, which I personally and the NFTRH service manage accordingly.

Check back to see my next post!

Best,
Gary Tanashian
nftrh.com

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Gold Stock Correction And Upcoming Opportunity

Before updating the status of the gold miner (HUI) correction, let’s take a quick review of the Macrocosm because it’s always a good time to be clear on important macro considerations.

The graphic makes the following points that are the foundation of the NFTRH view on the right/wrong times to be fundamentally bullish on the gold-stock sector. In order of priority, a bullish view needs:

  • A contracting economy, which…
  • Drives counter-cyclical gold higher vs. stock markets (and many other assets), and…
  • By extension, sees a general decline in economic and market confidence.
  • When an economic boom phase ends, yield curves bottom and start to steepen.
  • Gold rises vs. commodities and materials, some of which represent mining costs.
  • Gold rises vs. all major currencies, which is also a sign of declining systemic confidence.
  • Inflation expectations can be constructive for gold and especially silver, which drives ‘inflationist’ bugs into gold stocks, but this is not fundamentally positive if the inflation is cyclical and drives commodities like energy and materials more than gold. This is when gold stocks rise against their proper fundamentals. *
  • Cyclical inflation, as in 2003-2008 can see the sector rise strongly (HUI was approximately +300% in that period) but the end will be bloody, as per the Q4 2008 sector cleanout.
  • China/India “love trade”: Hahaha… when you see this in writing, run away from it.

Continue reading "Gold Stock Correction And Upcoming Opportunity"

Silver/Gold Ratio Hits Target

The NFTRH plan is and has been that the gold mining sector, due to the fundamentals implied by the handy graphic below, could eventually lead a world full of inflatables higher. The miners, leveraging gold’s outperformance to most everything else during liquidity crises and even deflation, move first and draw in the inflationist bugs later. If the macro goes inflationary the miners will likely continue to perform well (ref. the 2003-2008 period) but would no longer be the go-to sector.

Then the play theoretically spreads far afield into commodities, global stocks (e.g. EM, Asia, etc.) and US markets/sectors that tend to benefit from the rising long-term yields (e.g. banks, materials, etc.) resulting from inflationary macro signaling. These would be aspects of a sustainable inflation/reflation trade IF the signals are in order. So let’s take a look at some of them.

The Silver/Gold Ratio (SGR), a reflationary risk ‘on’ indicator has hit our upside target, which we have tracked in NFTRH updates over the last few weeks using the yellow box highlighting an area near the down-trending 200-day moving average that would at least temporarily halt the party. The SGR is pausing and pulling back a bit here. All normal so far. Continue reading "Silver/Gold Ratio Hits Target"

'Sentiment Event' Rally Grinds On

Excerpted from this week's edition of Notes From the Rabbit Hole, the Opening Notes segment of NFTRH 602:

As we noted in March while it was happening the sentiment environment became terror-stricken. Not fearful. Not over-bearish. Not even a contrarian extreme. Market sentiment was marked by full-frontal terror as indicator after indicator (ref. Sentimentrader's historic readings week after week) got slammed to epic over-bearish proportions.

Into the breach sprang the Treasury (i.e. taxpayer) backed Federal Reserve to the rescue. As the employment numbers come in at the tragic readings that we all saw coming the bears are out there beating a drum (ah, Twitter) about why it is not right, why the Fed cannot print a bull market, why the stock market is going to make new lows and why you should avoid stocks! They have been saying this since the terror-stricken days of March and they are still saying it now.

And do you know what? The rising risk profile that we have been noting for weeks will likely paint them as being right before too long. Imagine all those 'man who predicted a new stock market crash now predicts... (blah blah blah)' headlines that we will be subjected to as the paint-by-numbers media look to feed easy answers to the public later in the year and into 2021. The bears will probably be right but here’s the thing, they have not been right for nearly 2 months now. Continue reading "'Sentiment Event' Rally Grinds On"