by Outcast_Searcher » Sat 20 Aug 2011, 23:19:46
What I'm finding interesting is the breakdown of the correlation between the PM mining stocks and gold. If you look at either GDX or GDXJ for say, the past two years, the correlation is extremely strong -- and GDXJ has some silver miners, so clearly the issue is about mining STOCKS vs. the METAL.
The breakdown really took off about a year ago, as GLD's trajectory steepened compared to the mining stocks.
I've done some Googling and some reading, and haven't really seen anything overly insightful on this, IMO.
I have a few thoughts, and wondered if anyone had any (preferably productive) comments:
1). If people are getting more fearful of a REAL (but temporary) economic breakdown "emergency", such as a massive banking failure started by European idiocy, for example -- could this be spurring the demand for the REAL physical metal?
(If so, I assume this would impact GLD's price, since they hold the physical metal in vaults.) For me, no matter how high gold and silver go -- I am NOT tempted to sell my physical metal. If anything and I want to chicken out, I would want to put on some sort of hedge like GLD LEAP puts, or something, if the price gets truly parabolic.
2). I keep hearing about how costs are getting out of proportion and diminishing the profitability of mining. Does this make sense?
It USED to be (say 25 years ago), that the miners moved FASTER than gold, as they were leveraged to the price differential between their cost and their gold sales price (likely hedged to some extent by gold futures contracts).
I can understand that if the price is going way up AND the extraction price is going way up, then this ratio might greatly lessen. However, with relatively mild global overall inflation (so far) -- I just don't see this cost relationship changing drastically and suddenly like this price differential is. Perhaps I'm missing something.
3). Is the smart money wanting to own something SIMPLE and RELIABLE and PORTABLE and TANGIBLE that has a low long term correlation with the major global stock markets? Especially if they fear a repeat of 2008 (possibly on steroids)?
This makes some sense to me. This is part of why I don't want to sell my physical PM's at basically ANY price. (I can imagine that there are a LOT of people like me that really don't want to trade non-gold futures contracts, or put up with the cost and contango issues of general futures ETF's -- so by owning their inflation assets (like oil) via stocks -- they end up with a LOT of risk in stocks).
4). Fear of a global fiat currency breakdown, leading to a bond market breakdown, hyperinflation, and the consequences.
To me, this is another possible risk -- if things get bad ENOUGH, mining stocks are pieces of PAPER (actually electronic blips these days) and may not pay off if there is an economic disocation that is major and NOT temporary. I just wonder if there are ENOUGH investors percentage-wise who place a high enough liklihood on this outcome to allow a big and widening mining stock discount to persist. It seems the general investing public still isn't stampeding toward gold in the first world. They are in India and China -- but that is more of a long term cultural thing.
.....
So, if we aren't heading toward near term doom -- is this a good (and getting better) hedging or relative value opportunity? It's sure easier to click on (GDXJ orders than fool with coins, safe deposit boxes, etc.)
One other point in the miner's favor for the patient -- one can get some really decent premiums on options for even mining ETF's like GDXJ. This makes me think that holding a core position of a GDXJ and selling some short term options around the edges (as an adjunct to your physical metals holdings) -- should be a solidly profitable long term proposition for the:
a). PATIENT investor
b). Who expects PM's to trend upward over the longer term
For one thing -- this is a way to garner current income on a PM position -- which is one of the weaknesses of a core holding of coins/bullion.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.