Precious Metals Big Picture

While many are talking about major new bull markets in gold, silver and the miners I find it safer to set realistic goals within a still very bullish outlook. After all, we became bullish in November, had to retrench due to over-bullish sentiment and fading fundamentals in February (both situations linked here) and then have been back in the bull seat since the gold stock launch as noted on June 3rd.

The point being, I have nothing to prove to you; nothing to woo you and tempt your greed impulse about. NFTRH has simply called the sector in line with its fundamentals and technicals, and that is what we continue to do as of this day. We chart 20 quality miners (+/-) each week and note short-term targets, resistance, etc. for the miners, gold and silver routinely.

The other priority is to stay on top of the still-bullish fundamentals. Most recently silver joined the party and is probably slamming our favored theme into gear, which is for it to take over leadership from gold and potentially lead the macro to a future inflationary cycle. Easy now, that is still in the realm of potential, not yet reality. But all of this fun – and it has obviously been fun lately – takes place against a big picture that is lumbering along at its own pace.

What I like best is that due to the big picture view I can put forth a conservative 2019 plan, and it still calls for a minimum of another 70% upside for the HUI index. Within that, many of the miners we track will do much better. And within that, we have not even seen the speculative end wake up yet. Those would be the little TSX-V type penny stock bottle rockets (lottery tickets) that pull 400% rallies out of nowhere when they finally get played.

Okay, let’s reel it into the lumbering big pictures on HUI, gold, and silver. As noted, there will be bumps and pullbacks along the way. Monthly charts are not preferred for managing those situations so we’ll stick with the dailies and weeklies in NFTRH reports. But with the ferocity of the current rally (and the fundamentals behind it) it appears a good bet that a second leg to the impulsive ‘A’ leg in 2016 is underway after the beautiful consolidation that killed everyone’s spirits (as it should) since 2016. Continue reading "Precious Metals Big Picture"

Palladium Pushed Platinum To Record Low

A year ago I wrote about the platinum/palladium ratio as it was on the edge, and there were two possible options, to restore the historically normal supremacy of platinum (target 1.93 oz) or to prolong the triumph of palladium (target 0.56 oz.).

This month the Platinum/Palladium ratio hit a new record low of 0.55 oz. amid the rocket move to the upside in the palladium market; the latter became the most precious metal beating gold. Let’s take a look at the big picture below.

Chart 1. Platinum/Palladium Ratio Monthly: New Record Low

platinum/palladium ratio
Chart courtesy of tradingview.com

The chart above starts with a robust growth to the upside from 3 to 5 oz. and this move had set the “normal” range for the fluctuations of the ratio within the next two decades. It was interrupted only once in 1997 when the ratio fell out of the range and quickly dropped to establish a previous record low of 0.56 oz. in 2001 amid rumors that Russia would ban palladium export. It was a textbook example of a “sell rumors - buy facts” market behavior, the ratio was down on rumors and then when the reality didn’t confirm it the ratio quickly returned to the normal range making a beautiful V-shape pattern. Then the ratio had spent another decade in that range. Continue reading "Palladium Pushed Platinum To Record Low"

Gold Sentiment Lesson

[edit] an article critical of (anonymous) others is an appropriate venue to once again note publicly the biggest mistake of my own, which was an ill-conceived target of 888 on HUI last decade. I learned from that. It’s okay to admit mistakes boys. We all make ’em. But as with humility, that appears to be all too rare in the market writer world as well. It’s okay to once in a while simply state “I was wrong”.

The number in the title is in honor of the boldest forecast burped up by the gold community in February as the metal (and the miners) jerked upward and jerked the holdout would-be enthusiasts into the market. It was included in the anonymous (but real) quotes from a cautionary post last week on the Gold Bull Horns.

We also used these quotes in an NFTRH update in order to try to make a point, despite what were very short-term contrarian bullish readings that day (per Sentimentrader’s data) for junior and senior gold miners.

From the update (2.28.19)… Continue reading "Gold Sentiment Lesson"

Gold Bullhorns Quieted For A Day, At Least

Over in the gold patch, things went from disinterested and downright antagonistic (A Notable Lack of Interest in Gold) to sleepy (Gold “Community” Crickets) to ferociously over bullish.

Any long-time and right-minded gold bug will tell you that the latter condition is usually a signal to prepare for some turbulence. Wednesday and Thursday brought the turbulence in the form of a reversal and pullback for gold, silver and the miners.

Since we became constructive on the gold sector in Q4 2018 (per the links above and especially NFTRH reports/updates) the groundswell of gold boosting (pom poms and all) has steadily risen since it became obvious that something bullish was going on in January. And it appears that last week’s breakout from various daily chart bull flags in gold, silver and the miners finally jerked ’em all in. Enter the Thursday pullback.

In the very few days immediately before that $20/oz. pullback the gold “community” threw itself a gathering of the bullish clans. On just a quick look around the gold websites, some quotes popped out from 2 days before the pullback and one day before Wednesday’s reversal. It’s crickets no more… Continue reading "Gold Bullhorns Quieted For A Day, At Least"

A Precious Metals Update

I reserve most of the work on precious metals for NFTRH weekly reports and in-week updates because it is done on a consistent basis, with the work done previously key to the narrative making sense in real time and going forward. In other words, in order to not be out there stabbing in the dark, you need to have an ongoing, adjustable plan that makes sense at all times with the macro markets around it.

So that said, let’s take a snapshot of where things stand currently with the understanding that this work will need future updates, which will probably not be made publicly. It is up to the reader to do the work required to put context to the picture. Meanwhile, this will free up more space in next week’s NFTRH 538 to focus on some quality miner charts, which sometimes take a back seat to the macro/sector stuff.

Precious Metals Update

First off, Commitments of Traders data are only available through 12.31.18 as a result of the government shutdown. So we are flying somewhat blind from that perspective. At the end of December, the CoT for gold and silver were well on their way to a bearish alignment. Have they maxed their trends and reversed in the meantime? It is quite possible, especially since the metals have taken pullbacks (within their intermediate uptrends) recently.

We have been following an analog to 2001, which saw SPX break down below its 50 & 200 day moving averages as HUI began its bull market. What’s more, SPX then tested its breakdown in Q1 2001… Continue reading "A Precious Metals Update"