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Action was in the A’s today, as in Ass-kicking Agriculturals and AG and AU stocks. If you were playing close attention to my Prometheus Unbound post of last Wednesday, you are a happy dog tonight. Mentioned almost at the very bottom of that post is AAU, which I noted looked coiled for a takeoff.   That prophesy was fulfilled today…

Note the blast off at the concentration of both the 20- and 50-day EMA’s?  Now look at the last time those two lines came together to form a launch platform, back in August.   Auspicious, no?  But the best is yet to come, and I think it’s soon, as the weekly reveals:

Note that AAU has a bit of work to do to break final resistance.   We may not make it there on this first run, so you flibberty gibbet traders may want to take that first line as an exit point if you feel we’re not breaking through.   There could be a bit of consolidation at the $5 mark as there is with many of these precious metal miners.   I’ll probably use that moment to accumulate.

Does that strategy sound familiar?   It should, as it’s exactly the one I employed in tearing off great hanks of EXK for my later consumption and nourishment.  These smaller miners tend to follow a similar pattern of skepticism and volatility, until they break through that infamous $5 barrier for good, and are then considered “mature” enough for institutional play.  I think AAU is very close to that status.  Pay it heed.

I’ve one last “A” stock to leave you with tonight, and no, it’s not AGQ, or even AG, AEM or AU though those stocks are certainly weurthy (and should be considered with this reading).   No, tonight’s last plug is The Forgotten Jacksonian, humble Mr. Anderson — ANDE– which has calmly and quietly broken out to all time highs and the coveted “free air” of newly traversed ground.   I like it on a retrace of this weekly breakout, and soon:

I will be around only sporadically tomorrow as I must attend to some heart rending family business.  My best to you all in these fecund and opportune times.

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There’s room for Every-frickin’-body!
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It’s quite likely I’ll be busy today, so I wanted to throw a couple of brontosaurus burgers out there for your barbecuing pleasure in case things get all jiggy like yesterday.

‘Cause, make no mistake, we are entering into primo deal season here, if all of my bidness (sic) radar array are working in proper function.  My group is busier than a one-armed Palo Alto Perma-Bear at a self-congratulatory back-patting contest, and if the middle markets are moving, then I’m going bet the big boys have more cooking than just Uncle Warren’s Train Set purchase yesterday.

For one example, look for deals in the edumacation business, for one thing — companies like Apollo Group, Inc. [[APOL]] and DeVry Inc. [[DV]] and Career Education Corp. [[CECO]] have all been beneficiaries of a sea change in education delivery in the last decade or so.  

However, I think the paradigms are going to change even more drastically going forward.  I am getting this intuition from the myriad start-ups and later stage deals I am seeing in this space over the last 12 months.   As a result, I’d look for tuitions at all but the most exclusive post-secondary schools to come down in the very near future.   As a father of four near-genius children, I couldn’t be more pleased.

That aside, I think there’ll likely also be acquisitions in the Precious Metalspace as well,  as the various hedged and non-hedged behemoths squat and mark their territories by gobbling up junior miners with promising cargoes of “ounces in the ground.”   

To my chagrin,  I have no insight from an M&A perspective, as the majority of that deal making occurs north of our borders in the frozen outbacks of Canuckistan, completed by cigar-puffing investment bankers wearing snow-blindness goggles and polar-bear fur pantsuits.

Therefore, I can only point you out the promising junior and middle sized firms that may be in the snowmobile screens of various behemoths like Barrick Gold Corporation (USA) [[ABX]] , Newmont Mining Corporation [[NEM]] , Goldcorp Inc. (USA) [[GG]]  and AngloGold Ashanti Limited (ADR) [[AU]] .    These include:

Golden Star Resources Ltd. (USA) [[GSS]]

IAMGOLD Corporation (USA) [[IAG]]

Eldorado Gold Corporation (USA) [[EGO]]

Silver Wheaton Corp. (USA) [[SLW]]

[[CDE]]

Hecla Mining Company [[HL]]

Exeter Resource Corp. [[XRA]]

[[BAA]]

Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. (USA) [[IVN]]

[[EXK]]

[[PAAS]]

Silver Standard Resources Inc. (USA) [[SSRI]]

Compania de Minas Buenaventura SA (ADR) [[BVN]]   ———->>>> note: this one can be an acquiror or an acquiree, given it’s geographic interest.

and of course, the “catch all”  — [[GDX]] .

There are quite a few more that I’ve left off as I’m rushing, so feel free to add your own, and I may or may not add or comment on those later.

Best to you all, and one last thing:  beware the bear traps — and those calling petulantly from within them.

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Update: In a shocking and unexpected move the dollar is down again [[UUP]] .

Who could’ve seen it?  Heh. 

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Great news for those of us on the Jacksonian Sound Money Bus.    Mega –“Correctumundo” mortgage backed bond-shorting hedgie  John Paulson of Paulson & Co. has been piling into gold and gold miners in the first quarter of the year.   Propitious for us, no?

From the Bloomberg article:

May 15 (Bloomberg) — Paulson & Co., the hedge-fund firm run by billionaire John Paulson, increased its investment in gold and gold-mining shares in the first quarter, according to a regulatory filing.

As of the end of the first quarter, Paulson was the largest holder of SPDR Gold Trust [[GLD]], an investment fund that buys gold bullion. The New York-based firm owned 8.7 percent of the fund, valued at $2.8 billion as of March 31, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

That position was established as a hedge, the company said in a statement, because its funds have a share class that is denominated in gold rather than in dollars or euros.

Paulson bought or added to several gold companies in the quarter as well. He purchased a 15 percent stake in Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF  [[GDX]], a fund that mirrors the move in the Amex Gold Miners Index. That stake was worth $638 million at the end of the quarter.

Paulson also bought a 2.6 percent of Gold Fields Ltd. [[GFI]], becoming the fourth-largest holder of the Johannesburg-based gold miner.

The investment firm, which manages $26 billion, also bought an additional 2.4 million shares of Kinross Gold Corp  [[KGC]]. Paulson owned 4.4 percent of the Toronto-based gold producer and was its third-largest holder at the end of the quarter.

Paulson reported owning an 11.3 percent stake in AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. [[AU]], also based in Johannesburg, in March.

Rejoice Jacksonians, you are in the company of “the smartest guys in the room” since 2005.  

A hat tip to my friend and fellow Precious aficionado Gary Savage at The Smart Money Trader  for sending me the good news.

Ciao for now.

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Updated translation of the above for my hardened Gaelic friends:  Latha math dhut!

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