Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!

__________________________

I don’t generally do the intentionally provocative headline unless I’m trying to get your attention.  And usually, I’m only trying to get your serious attention on the breaking political stuff.  Very rarely do I pound the table on the market picks, unless I think we’ve entered a special “sweet zone” where we should collectively be taking advantage.

I believe this may be one of those times.

Let’s start with the commodity gold ($GOLD) weekly chart to show where it all began last week.  I’m going to use the weeklies on all of these mostly to show the consolidations and the breakouts, and also to show how much room this thing still has to run before it gets RSI oversold.   The gold weekly broke out of a consolidation flag that has been forming since September:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now let’s look at silver, via the double silver ETF $AGQ, where we are back above that first resistance support line after undergoing an RSI-divergence (again) since September:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last, let’s have a look at the gold bug index $HUI which shows us what’s going on with the major miners.  Note that we’ve been in a consolidating channel for almost 17 months now, and we have taken off from the most recent bottoming with a strong weekly push:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think that failed channel breakout from early September that has now consolidated into a flag pattern within the larger horizontal channel means that Baby $HUI is readying itself for a final breakout to the next level.  Again, the abundant room left in the RSI and the other stochastics also give me some comfort here.

Now there’s a lot of room to make money in a cornucopia of names here, and– again– I’m showing you the weeklies to indicate that there’s time left for you here, especially in the traditionally strong names like AG, EXK, SLW, ANV, AUY, and even the larger players like GG and ABX.  If you are not in any of them yet, then I would certainly make sure I had a position in SIL, GDX and GDXJ in order to cover the industry as completely as possible.

As for my favorites right now, I’ll give you a couple that I think you can buy “rain or shine” tomorrow because they’ve got so much “mo” behind them right now.  The first is my long time favorite and Jacksonian, RGLD:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Again, there’s just so much power in that lift off the floor.  You can wait, of course, to see if we break out of that triangle, but I think that volume and price action from last week are indicating that we may get out of it as early as this week.

My other “immediate” pick is Alexco Resource Co (AXU), which I have not mentioned in at least a year.  Alexco, however is betraying a consolidation pattern almost as toothsome as the one AUY broke out of late last year.  As you can see, this one’s bumping it’s head on the hypotenuse ceiling of that triangle.  I think with anything close to the volume of last week, that ceiling is history.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy, and partake, if you like.  Despite the temporary winds against us right now, I don’t think we’ve seen an opportunity like this in almost 18 months.  Make hay while that sun still shines.

Best to you all.

_____________________________

 

Comments »

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monument Circle, Indianapolis, Complete with Super-Classy, Monster Roman Numeral Decor

_______________________________

The precious metal sector has gone HAM, as we’ve discussed ad nauseum here these last few days.  I’m not a big crower, as I take the “That’s Life” Sinatra-version view of this crazy stock picking game.  In fact, if anything I’m ticked that I got caught with only 60% exposure to my favourite stocks in the PM sector, and having ditched my two internally leveraged stocks (AGQ and NUGT) only the day before this anti-grapist surge.  That said, my port is still well above even my Seven Samurai picks (currently at +11.4%) as of the first of the year, so things are good.

I also think I called the dollar top to within pennies (one of my predictions was that the dollar would fail at $81.50).   I think it has a bit to go, even as it may take a rest here to bounce on the support that has now become resistance (#2):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think we may get a bit of a pause here, but not much.  I will be adding on pullbacks and all the usual names will be good.

Let me take this opportunity, then, to point out my two “A” and “B” best PM stocks for the current moment.  I’ll do “B” first and admit right off that Banro — BAA is in fact, a Congo miner.  I make an exception, at least temporarily, to my rule about not taking too much political risk by noting that it controls over 2500 square kilometers of rich African resource land, and that it was incorporated (and still resides) in Toronto, Canada in 1951.  That’s a lot of embedded expertise and a lot of paid off pols in the Congo.  Consider it barrier to entry.

In any case it’s the chart I like, and when it gets back over $5, it’s going places:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yamana (AUY), my second attractive Toronto-based player, seemingly breaks my rules because of its size (over $12 bn market cap), pointing out that it may be more an acquiror than acquired.  I like it’s benign Latin American exposure, however (Mexico, Brasilia, Colombia, Chile, etc.) , and think that it’s got one of the more promising charts (this one a weekly)  thanks to a long term breakout from a lengthy consolidation:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll be trying to take these two in the next couple of days at $4.80 and $16.70 respectively, if I can.   My best to you.

_______________________________________

 

 

Comments »

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1I5n2-ro_Q 450 300]

______________________
Within a short number of years and certainly within the decade, we here at iBC will have created our own language from whole cloth, and the only people who will understand a word we are saying will be the slavish few who have hung on here for every nuanced phrasing and reworked 70’s-era cartoon-network pop cultural reference.

In future, iBC particpants  will not seek to purchase the equity receipts of a heavily shorted security in order to force immediate re-purchase by said short sellers, but instead one will “GO HAM” on said equity receipts and save time and exertion associated with over-verbose description for other tasks.

As well, one will never speak of aforesaid unfortunate short sellers as “portfolio damaged,” or “margin overburdened,” or even “equity depleted” participants in these volatile markets but rather as members of the investment community who, good character not withstanding, have been “GRAPED,” and left for corpse-pilfering on the side of the lonely road.

Brevity being the soul of wit, such gradual neologistic replacement will not only render these fora more humorous (sic), but also far wealthier in the end.  Hang on for the ride.

____________________________

Today was the best day of the year for me thus far, and it’s been a pretty good year thus far.  For one thing, all my precious metal positions went HAM on me today, with most breaking the 5% barrier and some flirting with 10% (like SSRI, ANV and IAG).  Moreover, my two big rare-earth metal plays, QRM and AVL were also up big at over 7% and over 10%, respectively.  Unfortunatley I wasn’t fully invested, having kept quite a bit of cash on the sideline for “opportunities,” and also having sold my AGQ and NUGT just yesterday to reduce leverage and risk.

I’m not as bent out of shape about that as you might think however.  I still returned over 4.2% today, and now I do have dry powder with which to pick off new targets.

Some of those will be additional pickups of the “Samurai Seven,” of which only two are currently precious metal picks —AG (+13.4%) and RGLD (+6.7%).  Nevertheless the full portfolio is up 11.1% since inception, and that’s despite two relative laggards in the short list portfolio.

As for the winners in the Seven, I am really enjoying this 28+% run in PBR since the start of 2012, and kicking myself for not making it my “Stock of the Year” pick.   I am also well pleased with the double digit returns of DE (+13.5%) and MON (+16.5%) since our entry.

The two Samurai I shall be gobbling tomorrow, double-ham fisted, however, are my two laggards, UPS (+3.3%)  and COP (-4.0%).  Both have nice dividends and UPS is finally creeping through that ceiling we talked about earlier in the year. getting ready for a breakout.   You cannot keep a good man down, or a good company, and these two fine specimens will do us well as the Bernakean Liquidity Parade Rustles on.

My best, and red eye ham gravy, to you all.

______________________

 

 

Comments »

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZSHDLIIZw8&feature=related 450 300]

Irony: The Pride of UMass Will Take on the Pats

____________________________

A late night pop-in from Giant fan land.  I am wondering how I’m going to pick stocks this next week or so with three lives deals on the broiler, and my New York Football Giants in the Superbowl.   The truth is, I’m probably going to start trimming here, and probably be more dormant than not.

Don’t get me wrong.  If the PM’s can hang in here, against the coming retracement of the overall early January move here, than I might even suggest some additions to AG or BAA or even AUY.

But for now, I’m going to trim sails and bask in a hard fought win versus the San Francisco Forty Niners and their NFL best defense.   There’s a lot to be said in the coming days about the next Superbowl game on February 5th.  The one pitting my Giants versus the New England Patriots — the teams (thought not the same team) they defeated 4 years ago in early 2008 to win the Giants’ third Superbowl trophy.   The Patriots will need little motivation to come hard in that game.  They’ve got a humiliating Super Bowl loss to get over, and they will try their damndest.

Luckily, we’ve got Eli in his Superman cape…. making it happen in the 4th quarter once again.  It should be fun.

____________________________

As I mentioned, I will be trimming tomorrow for sure, and raising cash.  I will probably get up to 60-75%, with only some core holdings untouched.

My best to you all.

_______________

Comments »

______________________

While the Samurai Seven 2012 picks continue to do well, with a 7.5% annual return thus far, not all of them are rising in concert.   Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR), which has recently switched from selling shitty beer to becoming a monopoly owner of Brasilian (sic) earl assets (good choice, there), is my big winner with a 20.5% YTD return.   Ironically, my lagger, and only negative return thus far at (2.20%) down is another earl and natty producer and mover, Conoco (COP).  Much to their chagrin, they are actually forced to compete with other earl and natty gas companies in the U.S. and abroad.   I still like them, however, and their 3.7% dividend is a nice cushion here as well.

My other two strong returners of the SamSeven are in the agricultural space, John Deere (DE) and Monsanto (MON).  They are returning 12.4% and 15.2%, respectively, this year, not counting dividends.  My “stock of the year” pick, UPS, is muddling along, still trying to break that $75 ceiling and returning 2.9% before dividends thus far.

That leaves my two “precious” picks, of the SamSeven, AG and RGLD, which are treading water as well, at 3.2% and 0.6%, respectively for the year.   As you know, these two are dear to my heart, and I think, after a rough 2011, the PM’s will be ready to move out once again this year, thanks to our friends in Washington with the printing presses. 

Remember, this is an election year and the Fed’s Primary Directive, not unlike that of the StarFleet Federation is — “don’t rock the flagging boat.”  Whomever wins or loses in November, the Fed doesn’t want any of the blame to come to its door if it can help it.  They know, in the end, where their bread is buttered, and they sure don’t want to give Mr. Ron Paul any more ammo in a year when he’s got a tiny little bully pulpit.  Ironically, they can achieve that by printing like there’s no tomorrow. 

So what I’m watching for right here is the important “Line of Death” for the U.S. Dollar — at $81.50, which you may recall is where I predicted the dollar would stall and therefore set the market running.   Well, we banged up a little past that mark last week, and have since turned down.  Now we meet some important resistance at the $79.50-$80.00 level.    If the DX-Y fails there, it’ll be risk on, across the board, and I think the precious metals will be ready to take off in a much bigger way.

Until then, I’ll be wary, and doing much of nothing except perhaps trimming the sails here and there.   I hope to put up that long term monthly dollar chart this weekend,  to illustrate the importance of that “Line of Death.”

________________________

Aside — I’m not a Gingrich fan as many of you know.  However, I have to admit, I’m baffled by the turpitude of the mainstream media in pushing this transparent re-hash of his divorce just days before an important primary election.   I mean, I almost have to think this is some kind of bizarre set up to give Newt an easy foil.

Could CNN really be that dumb?  I literally felt like I was watching an outtake of Idiocracy last night when the first question that blinking fool asked in the Presidential debate was about a 20 year old divorce battle.  Seriously CNN?  You call yourself a news organization?  Then what is The National Enquirer?

Really… almost too easy for the Newtster.  Stick a fork in the MSM, they are looking a bit overdone about now.

_____________________________

 

Comments »

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpA_5a0miWk 450 300]

Quite possibly the “Best Music/Worst Video” combination of all time

__________________________________________

At the end of the Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, the famed British hero King Arthur is transported back to an enchanted island to recover from his mortal wounds after the Battle of Camman  and perhaps be frozen in time for the next time England might need it’s hero king.

Some say he did come back– as Mick Jagger, or more likely the closer kin — Welshman Tom Jones– but that’s only idle speculation.  The important bit to remember here is that enchanted isle was called “Avalon, the Island of Fortune. ”   Some of you who are on The PPT may think sometimes that all of my picks have gone to a magical island to recover from their mortal wounds.  Perhaps they too will reappear someday when Chess or Rage or le Fly are having a bit of a dry spell.

That too may be idle speculation, but in the meantime, there’s a rare earth metal stock that I’ve been accumulating as of late, now to the tune of 30 kilotons, mostly in the low to mid $2 range.  It is of course called Avalon (AVL), and may finally be revealing itself as the font of good fortune I expected after many a day of bouncing around like a malfeasant pinball.

You’ll note in the chart below, that I marked an original consolidation point upon which I thought AVL might rest for a bit after rallying off it’s lows in October, hitting resistance at the old breakdown point (about $4) in early November, and then making a higher low in late November.

As the stock rallied back above that mid-consolidation line in early December, you will recall that I expected it to base there on the consolidation line.  Well that didn’t happen, at least not for very long, and the stock actually began breaking down again.  It eventually broke down below the “higher low” area all the way to the October lows before rallying once again on strong volume.   Note all that progress in the chart below:

Now the question begs — did we just experience a double bottom in these cursed rare earth metals?  If you look at REE, your answer might surely be “hells yes!”  Checking QRM, however, and you might consider the jury still in the anteroom.

What I can see, however, from the above chart is that we have some pretty helpful guideposts available.  If what we’re seeing on the past two high volume days has been the first two legs of the three white soldier candlestick pattern, we’ll see AVL‘s price burst above that consolidation line that so effectively served as our ceiling today.   Since this is a bullish reversal pattern, it should mean continuation after a bit of consolidation, so we might venture some additional buying in that case.

If however we do not get any follow through on the last two days momentum, we know that the consolidation line is acting as resistance.  If we really do have a double bottom pattern here, then we likely will not see another low below the most recent “DB” lows, and you’ll rather have a “rest,” followed by a final break of the resistance.  Given the volume of the last two days, I think that’s the more likely bet.

As an aside… my “Magnificent 7” 2012 picks, including Pick of the Year UPS, as well as AG, COP, DE, MON, PBR and RGLD, are up 5.9% collectively so far this year, and that’s not including dividends, which on some of those can be a significant sweetner.   MON is in the lead as far as top performers, with 12.5%, followed by AG and PBR with 8.5% each.  My two laggards are UPS and COP, with 0.4% and o.1% returns, respectively, thus far this year.  This does not include either stock’s phat dividends of course.

I’m going to be in and out the rest of the week, meeting with buyers, so I may be scarce, but will endeavor to visit at least in the evenings.   My best to you all.

_______________________

 

Comments »