Tag Archives: gold miners

Don’t Neglect the Forgotten

A forgotten sector comes to life
Miners decline relative to gold as investors give up on poor capital allocation by managers who paid high prices at the top of the last cycle 2007/2011. But that has changed as the sector has been starved of capital for years. Go where they ain’t.
A forgotten miner in an opaque market (Uranium). Eventually, the market MUST turn. An investor has to have a very (five years at least) timeframe for this market.


BANG stocks (Barrick, Agnico, Newmont and Goldcore vs. the FANG stocks–meaningless in the short-term but of interest to watch.

Markets Go Up and Down; Shorting Stocks

I am on my knees buying gold/silver/uranium miners with both hand this prior week (ouch!).  Since the chart of the futures positions (COTS) is now more extreme–money managers are probably short now like back at end 2015/beginning 2016.  I use the blog as a diary/bulletin board on occasion. I hate miners as a business but love the values.   Note the vast underperformance of hard (read: miners) vs. financial assets (SPY).   Not a recommendation, just a “diary” post.

  1. The Economics of Gold Mining_Myrmikan_Research_2017_03_14
  2. Gold mining equities Myth and Reality by Paulson
  3. Why Gold Mining is a Tough Business_Pollitt
  4. In-Gold-we-Trust-2018-Extended-version-english

Common sense from a grizzled veteran

Bob Moriarty                                       Archives                                            Jul 3, 2018

Entire article:  http://www.321gold.com/editorials/moriarty/moriarty070318.html

Buying resource stocks has nearly nothing to do with the commodity. And near zero to do with management or country risk or interest rates or the dollar or what the DOW is doing.  Those who are always wrong about markets spend a lot of time mumbling about all those things and they are just wasting ink.

Unbeknownst to GATA or the other PermaBulls who believe some munchkin at the Federal Reserve pulls the levers all of the time, markets go up and markets go down. They all do and they do it constantly. So if someone is telling you silver is the rarest mineral known to mankind and it should go up everyday of the week, forever, he’s lying to you in order to get you to pay for a subscription to his service. In short he’s like a bible thumping preacher or politician, he wants your support, and he specializes in telling you the lies you want to hear.

During the bull phase of the metals markets even the biggest piece of crap stocks go up. During the eventual bear phase of the metals markets even the best run with the most desired commodity in the safest jurisdiction goes down.

So investors in junior resource stocks need to keep two things in mind. You have to trade markets and take a profit when you can or the only alternative is to take a loss. I have had hundreds of investors tell me their biggest mistake was not taking a profit when they could. And given that something like 95% of investors in junior lottery tickets lose money, sell when you can, not when you have to.

You need to align yourself with the phase of the market you are in and let the wind be on your back. We had major lows in 2001 in gold and silver, again in 2008 and late in 2015. Don’t try to second-guess the market. If you were a buyer of anything from 2001 until 2008 you had a wonderful opportunity to profit. If you bought in 2009 or 2016, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. If you didn’t sell in March of 2008 or September of 2011, you got creamed regardless of the merits of the project or company. The phase of the market will either put money in your pocket or extract it regardless of what anyone says about a company.

Kase Learning Channel (9 Videos on Shorting Stocks)  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7igQqc_-k3LWCeUGnpE7Cg

Perspective on the Gold Miners; Management

Miners long term

SP long term

lt cape

Gold and Nixon

2Q 2016 Tocqueville Gold Strategy Letter – Final

The above charts came from this article.  I would ignore the conclusions but focus on the historical perspective.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/4003004-gold-mining-stocks-best-investment-asset-next-decade

GOOD MANANGEMENT

Enterprise Product Partners August 2016 Presentation

Note the information they give investors. How management communicates is important. Do they provide sufficient detail for you to assess their capital allocation skills and operational performance. Note page 5.

Celebrate when your stock gets downgraged

Analyst Recommendations Do they add value

Time to Sell Some Miners, But Not Much

Junior Miners

There is no training, classroom or otherwise, that can prepare for trading the last third of a move, whether it’s the end of a bull market or the end of a bear market. Paul Tudor Jones

I am selling about 1/5 to 1/6 of my speculative miners like Minco Silver. It was trading back in Jan. 2016 at about 30 cents.

Minco one yr

This miner didn’t fit all my criteria like jurisdiction and top-flight management, but it had $1 per share in cash and short-term investments and $2.00 per share (basic shares outstanding) in book value with no debt.  I viewed the stock as a cheap call option.  My position was not a full position but diversified in these type of exploration/pre-development type of companies.

MSV_2015YE_FS  Minco Financials

Minco Presentation

This bull market is starting to smell like the 1970 rally!

Bear-market-comparison-Gold-768x685

So, I expect this bull market to last perhaps years or for miners to multiply several times over.  You make your money SITTING.  But when you start feeling smart or, worse, other people think you are smart (where were you in 2015 when my accounts were down 35% to 40%?), it is time to peel some positions off.   Sell into strength. Note the past history of the miners.

bgmi

I wanna go back to the 70’s.

An educational video on the Federal Reserve or why you should own some gold

Have a Great Weekend!

Investment Strategy

Gold-vs-Gold-Miners-Ratio

Client Report Jan 29 2014

gold vs spy  Gold is money, not an investment.

Value Investing Videos (Manual of Ideas)

https://www.youtube.com/user/manualofideas?feature=watch

Pabrai lectures in India: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Py95fWZV2Vo

Reader’s Questions

How much of your decision to not own stocks of businesses outside of the mining sector is based on a top-down or macro decision.  The reason that I as is because you mention that you owned COH in the past and that seems like a cheap stock at the moment.  I could understand that you might not want to own it because of it struggles in the US and possible brand erosion, but that seems more like a quality issue than a valuation issue.  Or is it a fear of a hurting consumer?

My reply: Actually, it is a bottom-up decision.  I have pawed through my 250 stocks that I target in Value-line but see little margin of safety. Yes, I owned COH many months ago but sold near $58 as I had about a $60 to $65 valuation on it.  I am very skeptical that the high end of their profit margins can be sustained because of their clientele and QE. But the undervaluations in miners gave me a better uses for my capital.  So bottom up on both sides push/pull. 

But I am certainly not suggesting anyone follow exactly what I am doing. I still own some non-miners like ESGR but I wouldn’t add to them. 
 
Question: Also, I’m still trying to understand the margin decline argument. I haven’t done enough homework on it myself to ask intelligent questions, but intuitively I don’t understand why a specific geography (in this case the US) couldn’t have more than average of the types of companies that generate higher margins.  The geographic lines on a map seem arbitrary to me.

My reply: Well, set aside geography, because the same principles apply to any country. The most mean reverting metric of companies in general would be profit margins.  Think about the inevitable law of competition and lack of barriers to entry.  But understanding this subject will make you a better investor and save you heaps of pain!  If an analyst projects an increase in multiples on top of today’s profit margins, then I suggest a mercy kill for that analyst and his boss/clients. We are in the death zone–a climber’s term for high altitude conditions. 

Cutting back on growth capex and returning excess capital to shareholders if there are no adequate opportunities to generate excess returns is the right thing to do, but how sustainable is it for large companies like IBM or CSCO? Also, buying stock today may not be below intrinsic value for every company that is doing it.