Mining Minerals & Metals Share Discussion Threads

[1waving] 03/12/2008 16:06

SerpicoUK --- it is very easy to rubbish what you are not familiar with and have not taken the time and effort to learn.

I have learnt the simple forms of Elliott wave and consistently make money from that system. I learned, as have many others, from a very successful trader who has made a lot of money from Elliott wave over many years.

There are many who are successful using Elliott wave TA as part of their trading system.

Too easy to make a short rubbishing statement about something you haven't bothered to study and use. You can not see what you do not know and therefore do not know how to look for it.

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[haydock] 03/12/2008 12:21

Interesting SS:
Nicked for CEY, where the family are quite clear that all the workers someday could be Egyptian, & they are setting out to see them trained for the job.

[share_shark] 03/12/2008 11:59

From Money morning.


3 December, 2008

2009: gold stocks will be among the top performers


Cost-cutting will bring the next commodity bull closer



From Dominic Frisby, in London

Dear ..............

This week in London I was at 'Mines and Money', one of the biggest mining conferences of the year. It's a chance for miners, bankers and investors to network, do deals, discuss the market outlook and generally gee themselves up for the future.

Mining attracts some of the most flamboyant and larger-than-life characters you will ever meet, from smooth salesmen with slicked back hair and gold rings to rock-obsessed geologists with pot-bellies and beards. But in the wake of what Bob Hoye of Institutional Advisors calls "the greatest train wreck in the history of credit markets", the event was swamped with gloomy sentiment.

One of the most interesting parts of the conference was a well-attended question and answer session with some of the leading lights of the natural resources investment sector. Here's what they had to say - though in fact, many of the more insightful comments came from members of the audience...


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What will be the best performers in 2009?

Unsurprisingly, the experts on the Q&A panel (which included Graham Birch, manager of the BlackRock Merrill Lynch Gold & General Fund) were extremely bearish. They see this deflationary deleveraging process continuing to at least 2010 - in some cases 2012 - and found it hard to be positive about anything before then.

Now, I'm no blinkered optimist, but I thought this was a bit excessive. Sure, some sectors may well take that long to recover, but not all of them. So I asked them what they thought would be the best-performing commodity and the best-performing sector in 2009. Barry Dawes of Martin Place Securities voted for oil and possibly gold. Frank Holmes of US Global Investors, was bullish on palladium and silver and suggested that one of the minor metals – such as bismuth, cadmium or graphite – might shine, just as cobalt did last year.

Then the question was turned over to the audience. So overwhelming was the bearish sentiment that many did not vote at all, while about 15% said gold, 10% oil, about 7% non-gold precious metals, and no more than 5% base metals. One person said uranium – just one out of some 400! That has to be a bullish sign.

They're all interesting points. But not one person in the audience or on the panel, except Dawes, mentioned what I believe is going to be the stellar performer – gold stocks. He seemed to agree with my view that gold stocks are making a bottom now and could be the sector that leads coming out of this. Indeed they are making higher lows each week (they did so again on Monday) and they are markedly out-performing the metal with each bounce. I expect them to be 50% higher by the spring – I'll have more on the particular stocks I like in a future Money Morning (If you're not already a subscriber to Money Morning, click here to sign up for free).

Why cost-cutting will bring the next commodity bull market closer

I am even starting to feel bullish about gold explorers, though Birch didn't share my enthusiasm. "The world does not need new discoveries right now," he said. "Majors such as BHP and Rio are cutting costs. Big projects that have already been discovered and that were going into production are now being shut down. Majors have the deposits and they are not using them. Why do they need to explore for new ones?" Frank Lucas of Loeb Aron added that costs needed to be cut, and businesses need to be streamlined.

But at this point a powerfully-voiced Scottish mining engineer in the audience burst out: "The average age of a mining engineer is close to 60. If mines start closing down now, these people are not coming back. They're retiring. Where are the new mining engineers, the new geologists coming from? It's all very well having colleges, but most of what you learn, you learn on the job. There's no substitute for real world experience. The older people need to be there to train the kids. There's no shortage of bankers and fund managers, but a mine can run without hedge fund managers. It's all very well talking about a shortage of good deposits – the real shortage is of people capable of running operations."

This met with a round of applause – and rightly so. At some time in the not-too-distant future, the impact of this generational loss of knowledge and skills will be felt and it will take a long time to claw back. And in the meantime, the lack of investment will make it harder to get resources out of the ground – which means the next upturn in commodity prices could come all the sooner..

[serpicouk] 03/12/2008 11:21

Personally, that TA is just non-sense. Looking back over historical charts can anyone see simple 5 wave patterns as described above? I can't. Look closely at the very similar 70s bull market...did that complete a 5 wave pattern?

What time scales are these predictions over? If wave 1 was 8 years then what time to complete the corrective wave 2? And the full 5 wave sequence??

People say the system is manipulated- if so, then how can you apply TA?

The pog has a different chart depending on what currency you plot it in.

Gold will go much higher but not because its following a pre-set pattern. Predominantly for no other reason than the exponential increase in fiat money supply.

[share_shark] 03/12/2008 09:52

Thanks guys/gals for your posts, again.

yes Iwaving, excellent read.

[deka1] 02/12/2008 23:25

wave a good read thanks

[1waving] 02/12/2008 17:01

This is a MOST RECOMMENDED READ and the most important TA article I have posted on here. This is Alf Field's last post for reasons explained in the article which are a must read in themselves.

Alf Field is a very well respected Technical Analyst and has got gold so right for so long and has profited from his own analysis.

He uses Elliott wave theory which for those who are not familiar, for the following article, you just need to know that there are 5 waves. In a bullish move waves 1, 3, and 5 are in the direction of the trend ie up and will form 5 waves within each wave, so you will get major waves and more minor waves, and waves 2 and 4 are corrective, ie down. ( Vice versa in a bear trend )

Extract:--

Assuming that the $699 low on 23 October 2008 turns out to be the actual low point of the correction, and that remains to be proven, then we can conclude that we have seen the low point for Major TWO. That will allow us to update my original "back of the envelope" template to much higher levels, as follows:

Major ONE up from $256 to $1,015 (actually 4 times the $255 low);
Major TWO down from $1015 to $699, say $700 (a decline of 31%);
Major THREE up from $700 to $3,500 (a Fibonacci 5 times the $500 low);
Major FOUR down from $3,500 to $2,500 (a 29% decline);
Major FIVE up from $2,500 to $10,000 (also a 4 fold increase, same as ONE)

Once again, you can pick your number for the gain in FIVE and multiply it by $2,500. The numbers become astronomical and can really only be possible in a runaway inflationary environment, something which many thinking people are suggesting has become a possibility as a result of the actions taken during the current crisis.
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Full Article ---- ENJOY



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[haydock] 02/12/2008 12:34

This is the one!!!!

[haydock] 02/12/2008 12:32

This one works, borrowed from CEY:
The movement has started,if it really is significant time will tell.

[serpicouk] 02/12/2008 12:29

Don't follow zinc closely but its had a hard time...falling from almost $2 to under 50c. A lot of production and planned development expenditure has/or will be shelved.

As 1W says - demand is so weak and even with the cuts its hard to see a bright future in the short term. That kind of applies for most metals (ex Au).

GEX were expected to complete an agreement 'shortly' on a farm-in arrangement on the Asheba Project in Ghana. That was 3 months ago...if the agreement was with anyone other than a major then I suspect its been put on hold due to everyone cutting back expansion in grass roots exploration until markets settle.

[haydock] 02/12/2008 12:26

This may not work, anyway a chart on the Really useful gold thread: 54839 shows that in the last couple of days physical delivery has become a factor on the comex.

There is also an article about, along the lines of lets wreck the comex, go get them !!

Still it's a significant event ?

[1waving] 02/12/2008 10:01

Share shark
Just looking for GEX's Asheba gold project to go into a JV of some kind -- or maybe even get sold.

No zinc in Glencar so not sure why you mentioned zinc, however, a friend of mine works for a major galvaniser, spoke to him at the weekend -- orders dropped 25% and getting lower pre-Xmas. Demand for zinc reducing in Europe.

[haydock] 02/12/2008 09:45

Nicked from CEY:

[share_shark] 01/12/2008 22:37

guys and gals,

who are your views on Zinc and Ghana etc(Gex assets) please ?.

Many thanks.

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[1waving] 01/12/2008 22:10

and from Greg McCoach of Gold World:--

The World Stock Markets in the Next 12 Months

Gerald Celente of Trends Research Institute recently wrote:

The Fed cannot print enough money to paper over the $531.2 trillion in derivatives and credit swaps, the trillions in the overbuilt commercial real estate market ready to collapse, the multi-trillions in leveraged buyouts going bust, and other exotic financial instruments that have turned toxic. Yesterday's lowering of interest rates and the continual Fed action to flood the markets with money will lead to an era of hyper-inflation, the likes of which no living American has ever seen. We continue to forecast gold $2000. And once again, we urge you to take precautionary measures in view of a worsening global market meltdown.

Hyperinflation of this sort will absolutely drive gold prices to levels we just can't imagine. Gold priced in German Marks between January 1919 and November 1923 increased 51,176,470,588,135% during the hyperinflationary period of the Weimar Republic.

John Embry, of Sprott Asset Management, who was recently interviewed regarding this topic, believes as I do and said, "The U.S. authorities will not hesitate to debase their currency in an attempt to salvage the financial system. In the fullness of time, this will be wildly inflationary and should propel gold and silver prices that would be viewed by many in today's context as surreal."
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Religious experience for the shorts ----- surreal prices for the bulls.
Sounds good to me.
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[1waving] 01/12/2008 20:43

From Dan Norcini at jsmineset:--

'Those of you wishing to secure some more physical gold from the Comex warehouses so that you may deprive the shorts of their only line of defense, just received a discount of nearly $5,000 on your purchase price for 100 ounces complements of that same crowd. Each time one of these bear raids occurs and the weak longs rush out of the exits, those who want the real metal can easily step in and lock in a better purchase price for the physical. The more metal that flows out of the warehouses the more the shorts are being set up for a religious experience. The key is not to let up the pressure from the physical side of things. It bears repeating – the paper shorts have NO DEFENSE against determined longs who are taking possession of the actual metal at an increasing rate. Have you had enough of this phony paper market yet? Are you tired of the cart leading the horse around? Then take the metal away from the warehouses and the Comex will cease being the corrupt den of thieves that it is. Do not forget how the Hunt brothers handled the silver shorts in the late 70's before the feds stepped in to bail out their pals who were short the metal. The problem the Hunts had was that there were just two of them – an easy target – but in the case of thousands and thousands of investors who take physical delivery of the gold out of the Comex warehouses – what is the claim going to be from the feds? That the Comex market should not be a place where buyers can go and obtain gold? If not, then shut the damn thing down. If so, then buzz off.

Today we had another 2,566 deliveries that were taken, or stopped, against the December gold contract. That brings the monthly total to 11,166 contracts in just two days worth of deliveries. The entire month of October had only 11,554 to give you an idea how heavy the buying of the actual metal has been so far. Once again the stopper of size has been Bank of Nova Scotia. We are off to a very good start but cannot relax.'
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Would really like to see the COMEX taken apart -- taking physical delivery to do this is picking up steam.

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[share_shark] 01/12/2008 19:00

Jean Temkin
Johannesburg

THANKS mostly to the three-month rise of the dollar against the rand, the rand gold price reached a record high of R8649/oz last week while the dollar price put on 5%. The dollar is extremely overbought.

Dolloping out dollars has renewed jitters on the real value of the US currency. The dollar is still at dizzy heights, but it has given a short-term sell signal against the euro, and is nudging similar signals against the sterling and the Japanese yen.

My guess is that the dollar will be the next bubble to burst.

It's about supply and demand. Against the flood of dollars, a World Gold Council's report shows less gold coming on to the market from participants in the Central Bank Gold Agreement, who sold 357 tons of a 500-ton quota, making it the lowest level in official sales since 1999. In newly mined gold, according to Gold Fields' annual report, global gold reserves continue to decline by 70-million ounces a year, far outstripping new discoveries.

Oil supply is also under discussion by cartel Opec. Richer members, such as Saudi Arabia, can afford a period of low prices, but less-rich members like Iran and Venezuela cannot. As the 2-million barrels a day cut did nothing to stop the continued price fall, the next cut may be drastic. Assuming a combination of a weakening dollar and demand outstripping the supply of oil, a move back into gold makes sense.

The daily plotting of dollar and rand gold price shows how, until the start of October, the two plottings correlated. Then, at the start of October, the dollar moved to its highest overbought position, but speculators kept chasing after it. Some dumped gold in favour of dollars, pushing the gold price lower. Initially, the rand gold price followed, but, as the dollar kept rising the rand gold price headed for its high. As the dollar gold price nudged up early last month, its moving average convergence/divergence pushed up through its moving average, sparking a buy signal.

Along with most market indices, the JSE-overall gave a short-term buy signal last week, but as it's already overbought I expect a pullback in the short term. The market lift was sparked off as new broom Barack Obama swept away some of the pessimistic cobwebs overhanging share markets. Commentators say his bid to steer US policy so early in a transition is unprecedented. Obama's new broom is not unlike Franklin Roosevelt's first New Deal.

Mining shares led the field with Billiton and Anglo among the winners. Quality gold and platinum shares made magnificent gains, but are already overbought and likely to lose ground in the short term. Longer term, Cycle Trends charts indicate that platinums may be the eventual winners..

[share_shark] 01/12/2008 16:05

Goldfields and Barrick.





News and commentary
Funny Money by the Ton has to Be Good for these Two Gold Miners
By Judy Alster
Updated: Monday, December 01 2008 02:12:AM



(Before we start, you should know that poltergeists are definitely infesting my computer and/or this email system. For reasons unknown, two pieces I posted last week appeared just fine on the RightSide website -- but not as part of the emailed "Morning Briefing." However, nil desperandum! I'm indefatigably including both articles, the first about preferred stocks, the second about a rural telecom, at the end of today's column for readers who may have missed them.)

I'm indebted to a RightSide subscriber for a riveting but worrisome email. It concerns the U.S. money base, which is the sum of currency in circulation and commercial banks's reserves with the central bank. It's the narrowest form of monetary aggregate, but it's been getting fatter since September as newly-created money has been falling from the sky (mostly on banks and a few large financials). Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke earned the unfortunate nickname "Helicopter Ben" in 2002 when he heedlessly repeated Milton Freidman's comment that money could be "dropped from helicopters" if needed to avert a deflationary depression, that is, a downward-spiraling situation where prices keep dropping because incomes keep shrinking and nobody buys anything so unemployment rises and incomes shrink even more, causing prices to keep dropping. Bernanke publicized his desire to avoid repeating the mistakes of the Great Depression, meaning he'd prefer inflation to deflation. Obviously, he meant what he said.

Because the gold standard was eliminated in 1971, money can be effectively (but almost never wisely) created out of thin air, which has been the case for the last two months. Since late September, some 550 billion new dollars have been created (not earned) and added to the U.S. money base. That translates to a roughly 58% growth of the total US money base in just two months. Annualized that would be 350%, turning us into a kind of Zimbabwe with appliances. Most years, base money grows at around 1-2% per month and has grown faster than 5% per month only a few times. If you were graphing that slow-moving line, you would have seen it shoot up vertically in September, and again in November. According to my reader's email, the growth in money supply since September has been larger than the total money base that existed in 1999, and took place twice as fast as the worst single month during the Depression or World War II. There are now 50% more U.S. dollars in the monetary base than there were eight weeks ago, and potentially 100% more U.S. dollars for each gold ounce than there were in 2003. Banks create loans from base money, so in theory this recent expansion could result in even bigger monetary aggregates in the future.

What does this mean for investors? The potential rapid inflation in the U.S. dollar that's likely to come from such a massive dilution of the currency can only be good for gold and silver - the sole currencies that can't be easily diluted. Owning precious metal is one way to take advantage of this. Another is owning the stock of gold and silver mining companies. This blog deals in dividends, and there are very few mining or metals-royalties companies that pay worthwhile dividends with any predictability. Two that do, and are worth your further research, are Gold Fields Ltd. (NYSE: GFI), yielding 3% at Friday's $8.22, and Barrick Gold Corp. (NYSE: ABX), yielding 1.35% at Friday's $29.46. Both are rebounding sharply.
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[share_shark] 01/12/2008 08:40

Well now....................here is a very astute man. Warren Buffett.






The Richline Group, owned by Warren Buffett's holding company Berkshire Hathaway, acquired gold jewelry company Prime Time weeks after acquiring Alarama, another gold jewelry company

[haydock] 27/11/2008 11:50

GEX on the watchlist:

[deka1] 27/11/2008 07:22

serp hi, simon cawkwell has bought back in to CEY ,just a point to note, check the latest posts on cey board from yesterday

[serpicouk] 26/11/2008 22:51

deka - CEY have been on my watch list for several years but I've never taken a position. Not seen many charts that look like breaking out but CEY clearly do.

[1waving] 26/11/2008 21:56

Jim Sinclair's Commentary

If anyone knows it should certainly be these fellows.

Citigroup says gold could rise above $2,000 next year as world unravels

Gold is poised for a dramatic surge and could blast through $2,000 an ounce by the end of next year as central banks flood the world's monetary system with liquidity, according to an internal client note from the US bank Citigroup.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 4:48PM GMT 26 Nov 2008

The bank said the damage caused by the financial excesses of the last quarter century was forcing the world's authorities to take steps that had never been tried before.

This gamble was likely to end in one of two extreme ways: with either a resurgence of inflation; or a downward spiral into depression, civil disorder, and possibly wars. Both outcomes will cause a rush for gold.

"They are throwing the kitchen sink at this," said Tom Fitzpatrick, the bank's chief technical strategist.

"The world is not going back to normal after the magnitude of what they have done. When the dust settles this will either work, and the money they have pushed into the system will feed though into an inflation shock.

"Or it will not work because too much damage has already been done, and we will see continued financial deterioration, causing further economic deterioration, with the risk of a feedback loop. We don't think this is the more likely outcome, but as each week and month passes, there is a growing danger of vicious circle as confidence erodes," he said.

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