Tuesday Jun 18th, 8:27PM EDT
Expert Charts, Trading Tips and Technical Analysis from INO.com
We often hear the claim that gold producers have not met investors' expectations for the past couple years. While there are many potential reasons for this, one explanation for their underperformance lies in the fact that producers diluted their share structures, leaving shareholders with smaller gains than they would have otherwise harvested.
To show how this dilution has impacted the industry, let's first review how gold miners performed last year compared to the S&P 500. [Read more...]
In October of last year, we published a platinum-market overview in the Casey International Speculator and concluded by saying: "We recommend avoiding South Africa, and in this context it means staying away from platinum producers located there. If the energy situation spins out of control, miners' strikes continue, and the local trouble puts an indefinite halt to a significant portion of platinum production, some speculative opportunities may appear in the physical-metal market or platinum-backed investment tools. If we see signs of that happening, we may speculate on the results."
Although some of the events that we expected did occur this year, the "indefinite halt" has not. The nationwide wildcat strikes that ended in mid-November suggested that that scenario was possible, but the bubbling pot simmered down. We were asked by our readers to share our view on the implications of those actions on the price of platinum.
So, what is the outlook for the platinum market now, and is it time to buy? [Read more...]
I attended this year's New Orleans Investment Conference along with Doug Casey, Marin Katusa, and Casey Research's CEO, Olivier Garret. It was fun to see many old friends among the attendees and other speakers, but the most interesting thing was an experiment I conducted as part of my speech.
You see, there had been a talk earlier in the conference on picking "ten-baggers" (stocks that go up 1,000%). Now, there's nothing wrong with shooting for ten times your investment in a highly volatile stock. It's neither a crazy nor a hyped-up claim – we've had many ten-baggers in our portfolios, including Silver Wheaton (SLW) and First Majestic (AG). But it's not easy, and many of the nano-cap stocks that offer that sort of potential do the opposite and drop 90% – if not all the way to zero.
So I asked the audience to raise their hands if they wanted ten-baggers in their portfolios. About three-fourths of the audience put their hands up. I didn't take time to count the hands, but it was a lot of people – several hundred.
I then explained the realities involved: [Read more...]
By Louis James, Casey Research
One of the points we've made several times over the last year is that traders stuck in an old paradigm are frequently selling gold for the wrong reasons.
The most egregious (or just plain silly) example is that gold often drops when the euro drops.
This happens, not because there's anything wrong with gold at such times, but because gold is priced in dollars. Instead of being thought of as a store of value in many investors' minds, gold is viewed as a hedge against weakness in the dollar.
But what are dollars priced in? [Read more...]
By Louis James and Andrey Dashkov, Casey Research
Copper is sometimes referred to as "Dr. Copper," because the metal is used in so many industrial applications and is essential for many different sectors of the economy, from infrastructure to housing to consumer electronics. That usually makes its price action a good indicator of the state of the global economy.
The chart below illustrates the degree to which copper follows economic health – as opposed to gold, which is a traditionally a contra-cyclical commodity. Have a look. [Read more...]
In an interview with Louis James, John Hathaway discusses the US's economic outlook and why he's delighted by the current bearish sentiment toward gold.
[To be a successful speculator, one must be willing to go against the mainstream investment trends, as John is. There's no better way to get a primer on contrarian investing than by sitting in on the recently concluded Casey Research Recovery Reality Check Summit – and you can do that by ordering the Summit Audio Collection today. Every presentation, every chart and graph, and every actionable investment tip can be yours, in either the instantly available MP3 files, or in CD format.] [Read more...]
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